Last August, Reuters published and then withdrew two photographs from Lebanon that had been digitally altered.
At that time, we immediately terminated our relationship with the freelance photographer who took and altered the images and said wed share with the public the results of our internal investigations.
Experienced photo editors and other senior editorial staff went through thousands of images published during the Lebanon conflict. We are satisfied no other images were digitally altered.
We were not satisfied with the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through. We have tightened procedures, taken appropriate disciplinary action and appointed one of our most experienced editors to supervise photo operations in the Middle East.
Stephen Crisp started in this role this month; most recently he managed the transition to Reuters of our Action Images subsidiary. A British citizen, he has run pictures operations in Europe, Asia and globally while working for Reuters since 1985.
His predecessor in the Middle-East role was dismissed in the course of the investigation for his handling of the case.
We called together our senior photographers to strengthen our existing exacting guidelines on ethical issues in photography and wrote a new code of conduct for photographers, appended to this note.
We have restructured our pictures editing operation to ensure that senior editors deal with all potentially controversial photographs, and we have ensured that shift leaders are focusing solely on quality issues instead of doing editing themselves.
In addition, we have invested in additional training and supervision, particularly in the area of digital workflow, where we have engaged external experts.
Finally, we are working with industry leaders to see if there are technical means we can devise to better recognize possible fraud.
We are fully satisfied, as we conclude our extensive investigation, that it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs. There was absolutely no intention on Reuters part to mislead the public.
Our swift, strong response, however, both in the days immediately following and in the months since, has strengthened our commitment to our trust principles and our reputation as a respected global news provider which acts with integrity and transparency. We have shown that when mistakes are made we take responsibility and make changes.
Our enhanced guidelines and procedures are among the best in the industry. And I believe we are firm in our dedication to reporting the world truthfully, objectively and without bias, as we have done for more than 150 years.
A brief guide to Reuters values and standards
David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief
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Thanks for all the comments on the Reuters 2007 calendar. I tackle this subject in a separate post.
- Posted by David SchlesingerDear David. Is it not incredulous that complaints are made about a photograph showing more smoke after an Israeli air raid than actually occurred. It seems to me that the amount of smoke would depend when exactly the photo was shot. Do the complainants realise the amount of damage that was inflicted upon the State of Lebanon, not only in terms of infrastructure but also the tourism industry which has been virtually destoyed. There only concern is whether a photograph has been tampered with. How do they answer the question of the necessity to destroy everything in sight to remove the Hezbollah on the border with Israel ? More compassion and a little less nit-picking please. The State of Israel relies on the support of the USA (Billions of dollars each year), 98% of whom are non-jews. It’s time for more jaw-jaw and a little less war-war in the Middle East and start correcting the plight of half of Israel’s population, i.e. the Palestinians that have lived in refugee camps for the last 58 years. SHALOM
- Posted by Pete SayersYou resonse was about as swift as a slow turttle! More important you did serious damage to people, reputations and slanted the news at the expense of truth. While you have said that you have taken steps to prevent a reoccurance, what have you done to correct the damage that you already have caused?
- Posted by Michael M. EismanDear David,
You state that “..there was absolutely no intention on Reuters part to mislead the public….” but I don’t think it’s a question of Reuters intentions, but rather the fact that stringers have found Reuters relatively easy to penetrate and manipulate, particularly in an atmosphere where shocking images are financially lucrative for stringer and news agency alike, and in conflicts where manipulation of images is more powerful than rockets or grenades.
Reuters is in the middle of a war zone not just when you have reporters in the field, but you are in the middle of a war zone right there sitting at your desk. You are a target.
A question every editor and reporter should ask himself every 60 seconds is “How open am I to manipulation?”
- Posted by Phil BeckmanTo the management and editorial teams at Reuters:
Democracy depends on a free and independent press to report truth, expose corruption and keep our treasured system working to benefit the people. As journalists, your role nationally and internationally is absolutely crucial. I believe you understand this dimension of your work.
Unfortunately, we have all witnessed the corruption of the press in the last years, as well as its becoming victim to ideology. This has led to a significant weakening of democracy the world over, and the strengthening of its enemies.
One only has to look at:
- CNN’s admission of biased reporting in order to gain favourable access to Saddam’s Iraq,
- the doctored images and biased reports that came from Lebanon in the recent war there (did anyone actually criticise Hezbollah for firing missiles from civilian areas?),
- the compliance of the press in the Palestinian territories where no report adverse to the Palestinians is published for fear of having reporting permits revoked, and
- the lack of serious questioning of interviewees and allegations that are anti-Western and anti-Israel at source.
Another glaring example of this bias (being blinkered by ideology) is the refusal to call terrorists by their name when it is Israeli and Jewish civilians that are killed and maimed, but suddenly calling them terrorists when the victims are American, British, Australian, or from any other country.
Other examples include:
- Unrelenting negative press of Israel, while countries with far worse records are relatively ignored, e.g. Sudan, China/Tibet, North Korea, Iran/B’hai’s/Kurds, etc
- Criticism of Israel for building a defensive barrier that has been 100% effective in stopping the bombing and killing of its civilians, while no comment is passed on other countries with such barriers or in the process of building them.
Sadly, Reuters has been no exception to such flawed reporting over the years.
This type of bias, besides undermining democracy the world over, has 2 other serious effects:
1) It destroys the credibility of your organisation. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the ramifications of that here.
2) It emboldens the perpetrators of terrorism and crimes against humanity, as they know that their actions will not lead to their condemnation or loss of support across the world. It has led to the death toll from such acts being much higher than it otherwise would have been, and so makes the compliant press accessories to murder. One wonders how many lives would have been saved had the world’s press roundly condemned the bombings of civilians in Israel from the outset, and presented reports on the lives of the victims and their families? Or even those who had been horribly maimed by the bolts and metal shards included in those bombs? I can assure you that if the perpetrators of these awful acts knew that they were losing support with every bombing, that they would have ceased a long time ago!
Please don’t forget the lessons of appeasement that we learned from Chamberlain and Hitler. If we feed the forces of evil, they will only grow stronger and eventually pose an existentialist threat to ourselves, as they do now.
The purpose of this e-mail is to appeal to you at the start of this new year as journalists and guardians of our societies to think deeply about what you publish, and what you don’t publish. Don’t let your reporting be hijacked by economic threats or by ideological agendas. Defend the integrity of your reporting and the democracies that rely on you. Your organisation will be strengthened and respected as a result, and you could be responsible for saving the lives of many people around the world.
- Posted by Meyer MussryDear David,
Lies, mishandling, faulty goods when these things happen in the product industry the product is recalled and the purchasers compensated.
Why haven’t the offending calendars been recalled? We thank Reuters for at least attempting to own up to its shortcomings but you wouldn’t feed bad formula to a baby and you wouldn’t expect the company to go scot free.
People rely on Reuters to provide unbiased coverage and we are sorely disappointed that you haven’t done that in these cases. Our trust in Reuters has been damaged.
We need real action to bring that trust back not lip service.
- Posted by Tammy GildenRef.: The manipulation of pictures about the Israeli-Hezbollah war
Dear Mr. Schlesinger,
- Posted by Dr. Oro AnahoryReuters will loose its credibility as a reliable media organization. It simply cannot afford to distort the truth by manipulating pictures taking during the Israeli-Hezbollah war. This is bias reporting.
I am glad that you took measures to correct the situation. Let us hope that your new procedures regarding the photo operations in the Middle East will result in improved standards of journalism.
Dear David,
Unfortunately, I see very little evidence to support the claim that Reuters’ showed a “swift, strong response…both in the days immediately following and in the months since.”
First, I seem to recall Reuters issuing official public statements expressing denial, hostility, and outright contempt for those questioning their integrity. The organization continued to bat away the charges against it until the weight of evidence became too great to ignore. I submit that the organization would have otherwise swept the entire affair under the carpet and continued dealing with the same stringer photographer.
Second, if the affair were dealt with in earnest and Reuters were truly concerned about “the degree of oversight,” then why have there been blaring incidences of bias since?
To cite a specific instance, I draw your readers attention to one striking example that was recently brought to my attention; your 2007 “Eyes on the world” desk calendar. I suggest that readers view it for themselves on the following website, where its been conveniently posted, and judge for themselves:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33045123@N0 0/sets/72157594454193336/show/
Note the organizations effort to depict images and captions that reflect positively on achievement and culture throughout the world community. Indeed, this is clearly the case for the scenes selected for every month of the yearbarring one exception. The only image to depict a militaristic or negative subject matter is the month of July. Whats more, it is not surprising that the sole recipient singled out for this glaring oversight is none other than the state of Israel.
Could not Reuters have found something more positive in keeping with the tone of the rest of the calendar, even, for example, depicting Palestinians voting in their own election? It is very difficult to believe that the marketing staff at Reuters is incapable of finding any other relevant image with a similarly positive message from the organizations huge archive of photographs.
Reuters’ calendar demonstrates a subtle yet insidious and institutionalized form of bias. It is reflected not only in that the agency has adapted a crude, anti-intellectual stance with regard to the conflict in the mideast, demonstrating no interest with regard to its historical and political reality, but also in the fact that the following question begs to be asked: With all that is wrong in the world today and given the magnitude of these inequities, why does Reuters continuously insist on placing a disproportionate focus on Israel?
- Posted by EricCongratulations on the careful review and correction of faudulent photographs. I hope and pray that this will extend to language as well. Fairness in actually reporting all sides of each issue as been missing, and will be welcome. Reuters commentaries are unnecessary; all we want and need are the complete and unvarnished facts.
- Posted by Joanne BOur swift, strong response, however, both in the days immediately following
The problem is that the damage was already done. False reporting cannot be ‘retracted’ - no one reads the retractions.
Reminda me of the story of a kid who asks his father how to atone for mis-placed words. The father suggests that, for each mis-placed word, he place a feather taken from a single pillow, on a fence. The pillow envetually became empty and the kid approached his father and asked how he would know that his mis-placed words were forgiven and forgotten.
The father suggests that he go and collect all the featehrs and count them up. Returning with no feather the boy understands the message a little clearer.
Mis-placed and evil words cannot be retracted.
Perhaps your organization can add this to your ‘Values and Standards’.
- Posted by Cyril BraudeThese incidents do not “happen”. They are simply the logica result of the on going bias against Israel and Jews. Journalists / reporters/ editors comply with the spirit of the guild or circles they are involved with. This is the situation at CBS, ABC and other news outlets. It became chic to blame Jews and Israel and defend terorists.
Something drastic needs to take place at the top of these news orgs. to change this attitude.
- Posted by NikiDear David,
I’m relieved that you finally address journalistic integrity. In school, we learn the importance of being even-handed, honest, etc. when reporting. In the real world, we learn that in the name of profit and the cutting edge, professionals will sacrifice even-handedness and honesty, especially concerning the Middle East and Israel. Perhaps there is a thought that honesty and integrity don’t sell? The responds from this blog prove differently.
- Posted by Elizabeth WDavid Schlesinger writes:
“Finally, staging photographs is of course an issue in news photography, just as plagiarism and fabrication are issues in news reporting.But the problem of staging is not new, it is not limited to any particular region of the world or story and it is certainly not restricted to Reuters.”
Wow. Such towering moral authority. Such august and sovereign independent integrity. Such austere devotion to accuate reporting.
“We may stage photographs, but we ain’t the first and we ain’t the only ones so get off our backs.”
- Posted by Paul MillerSir,
I hope that you will subject the calendar affair to the same apparently scrupulous investigation as reported for the photographs and that you will make the results public.
I am doing my best to fight off paranoia but I can’t help feeling that there is an anti-Israel mole in the organization.
- Posted by Henry SaltzmanSad to relate, there has been no “swift, strong response.” In fact the response was slow, half-hearted, and emerged only as the response to growing criticism. The only “swift, strong response” that Reuters made was to deny, deny, deny. A better response would have been to say: “We were in error. We allowed things to slip through that proper oversight would have caught. Our standards are the best, but we temporarily lost sight of them, and we assure the public that we have taken steps to ensure that this does not happen again.” Ultimately Reuters did say something of the sort, but with enough hedges around it that it becomes almost self-exculpatory.
- Posted by Eric A. SilverIt is pleasing to note Reuters’ declaration: “We are fully satisfied, as we conclude our extensive investigation, that it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs. There was absolutely no intention on Reuters part to mislead the public.” I have difficulty with that, because in addition to the two photographs that were intentionally altered, there has been pronounced and long-term bias on the part of Reuters. The appointment of Steven Crisp is an excellent decision. The very fact that it was necessary to appoint him and dismiss his predecessor is the clearest possible indication that all was not right. This is not a matter of two photographs. that is simply the tip of the Reuters iceberg and while it can certainly be expected that Mr. Crisp’s appointment will correct that, the fact that such attention needs to be focused on the Middle East in and of itself reveals the presence of a bias that does not exist elsewhere in Reuters’ reportage.
Hi David,
Thanks for responding so candidly about the issue of image manipulation.
I’m interested to know how a media organisation like Reuters responds to what are obviously mass email campaigns from groups who have little real interest in a dialogue on relevant issues, but use the concepts of ‘balance’ and allegations of ‘bias’ to pressure news organisations to demand reporting that conforms to their views?
For instance, a group called “HonestReporting” recently called for its readers to bombard Reuters with complaints over the issue of Reuters’ 2007 Calender, because it contained an image of a Palestinian (btw, you’re about to be targetted again as HonestReporting is today asking people to comment here on this same issue).
Do you just accept this as part and parcel of the modern media world, where increased participation is an asset, or is it a problem of increasing polarization, where some refuse to accept opinions/facts they don’t like and simply want confirmation of pre-existing views?
- Posted by MichaelIn response to Geoffrey Mehl - We very often work in both RAW and what we refer to as the BASE image (the JPEG file as the camera shot it). RAW mode itself is not practical for every photo as the file is often 11mb or more. In many countries communications are still very slow and the images would take too long to send. We have also found that sending very large files over a bad communications link actually damages the file in the tranfer process. To recap, a small percentage of our files are sent in ‘RAW’. As telecoms facilities get better, this will increase.
KEVIN COOMBS
- Posted by Kevin CoombsSenior Editor in Charge
Pictures Production
David,
Your January 19th post has convinced me I’ll get more accurate information from blogs than Reuters.
You start by simply declaring the practice of buying photos from locals (who have strong connections with the area and therefore are not unbiased) is a strength. You go on to add some fluff about your system improving the lives of some individuals who ended up as employees, which would be great if you were a charity, but has nothing to do with the accuracy of photos. So we are left with “hiring locals is a strength because we say so.”
You then go on to make conclusive proof of fraud your standard for rejecting a photo. Of course, the only way you get conclusive proof of fraud is if the photographer sends a note with the photos saying they are a fraud. Truly a high standard you have set there!
You conclude by telling everyone faked photos is a fact of life and everyone should grow-up and accept it. Gee… how are you going to live up to that high standard?
- Posted by Mike P“Some of the most iconic news photographs of history have been attacked as staged or misleading, among them the image of Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War two, taken by an American photographer, or the photograph of a Vietnamese girl running naked from a napalm attack, taken by a Vietnamese photographer in 1972.”
- Posted by Horacio VillalobosDear Sir:
As an Old Photojournalist, I’d wished you to have declared the two photos mentioned above as free of any blemish. Both were taken under clear cut circumstances, and there were witnesses (film footage included) on how both situations developed.
It is sad enough that thorough pros and gentlemen as Joe Rosenthal and Nick Ut were slandered once and again. But to be mention by you, who should be in the know, without stating the truthful nature of both pictures, saddens me.
Yours.
Dear David,
In my humble opinion the problems as Reuters are much more systematic than you are willing to admit.
With many news outlets using your materials on a daily basis the built in anti-Israeli slant that is evident to any unbiased observer becomes a problem for all of humanity.
Understanding that stories from any other point of view are non-stories and that money drives everything helps me realize this is not going away.
No one buys the paper or watches the news to hear about Arabs killing Arabs, Arabs killing Israelis or Americans. However, when Israelis or Americans kill Arabs (man-bites-dog) there is a headline to sell.
Shame on us all,
Amir Stamper
- Posted by AmirPlantation, FL