We are not ones to crow here at More4, and God knows we all make mistakes, but it seems one big news agency has got a bit more egg on its face today than others.
The otherwise reliable Reuters admitted yesterday that it had digitally altered a photograph of an Israeli attack on Lebanon on Saturday, showing more smoke than was actually present. 
The photograph, as initially published, showed an aerial view of Beirut after an IAF attack, with two large pillars of smoke rising over the city. The caption read: Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs.
The agency has since withdrawn the photograph, issued an apology and released the unaltered picture.
But this isn't the end of it...
It seems that the website that noticed the picture alteration has had prior run-ins with Reuters. A short while back a Reuters employee was suspended after sending a death threat to an American blogger. The message, sent from a Reuters internet account, read: "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut."
The unhappy reciepient of the e-mail was Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballls blog, a site that is pro-Israel and highlights 'terrorist' activities. In the threat, the Reuters staff member left an e-mail address: zionistpig@hotmail.com. Johnson discovered, however, that "this particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News."
We haven't received any death threats or verbal abuse so far here at More4 from our coverage of the conflict in the Middle-East. But there is time.
What makes me laugh about this story is not that the photo was altered, but that it was altered so ineptly. To a half-practiced eye, it looks clearly photoshopped. If you're going to try to fool the public, at least do it professionally.
Posted by: Colin Jackson | Tuesday, 08 August 2006 at 12:46 PM