By Andrew L. Jaffee

Reuters has expunged photographs from its records taken by Adnan Hajj, who had doctored an image of an Israeli airstrike against Beirut, and an image of an Israeli fighter-jet. In fact, Reuters was quite contrite in response to its misstep in journalistic judgment. Hajj had claimed to have cleaned dust off the Beirut image. From the BBC:

Paul Holmes, editor of political and general news at Reuters, told the BBC that senior photographers at the agency “weren’t convinced” that cleaning dust off the first image would result in the manipulation the image showed.

He said there had been a “lapse in our editing process”, but stressed that Reuters had moved swiftly to address the issue and tighten editing procedures.

Global picture editor Tom Szlukovenyi said all of Adnan Hajj’s images had been removed from the company’s database.

He described it as a precautionary measure, but said the manipulation undermined trust in Mr Hajj’s entire body of work.

“There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image,” Mr Szlukovenyi said in a statement.

Contrite yes, but only when caught.

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Related: Israel, Lebanon, Media/Blogsphere, Palestinians, Political Correctness, Terrorist Groups

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