Off The Record

Well this was the scene at China’s Parliament, the Great Hall of the People, on Friday 11 August, when 48 contestants in the “Miss Bikini of the Universe” paraded before the glare of the world’s media. The women represented countries as far flung as Australia and Pakistan.  The spectacle was reported in Chinese media including the government’s English-language mouthpiece, The China Daily, under the title “Bikini-clad entrants vie for ‘Queen Pearl’”.

Has China lost its sense of political decorum? Two years ago the Central Government overturned a decision by Beijing’s Olympics organising committee to allow the women’s beach volleyball competition to be held in Tiananmen Square during the 2008 Games.  Beach Volleyball played by women in swimsuits was considered inappropriate for the symbol of the heart and soul of the nation.

Perhaps next year China will host the Miss Bikini Universe competition inside the Forbidden City, next door to the Starbucks situated there – now that the hoopla that surrounded its opening has died down.

While Reuters reacted swiftly to pull the photos from its service, and to also address the issue on its own warts-and-all blog, The News Room, the damage had been done to the news service company’s reputation.  The key question being asked by the international blogging community and media analysts was why Reuters photo editors had not spotted what amateur photographers and photo enthusiasts had picked up, viz., that photos by Adnan Hajj carried by Reuters and on-sold to other media outlets, had been altered.  In one particular photo, exposed on the Little Green Footballs blogger site, Hajj’s expertise with photoshop increased the volume of smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut following an Israeli air strike – making the impact of the strike look far worse than it was and suggesting that the Israelis were guilty of random bombing rather than the pin-point targeting the Israeli military claimed it was carrying out.  Photo analysts have even suggested that some of the buildings in the photo were also duplicated in a process called “cloning” to make it look like several buildings had been bombed indiscriminately.

If a picture paints a thousand words, a manipulated photo paints a thousand lies.

Although Reuters has removed all Hajj’s photos and has said it will not accept future photos submitted by him, many in the blogosphere are asking what disciplinary action has Reuters taken against its own photo editors who let the altered photos through.  Reuters has been in damage control and is now working fervently to ensure similar frauds are not perpetrated in the future.

But the lid is off and the media is coming under the microscope.  Some blogs, such as zombietime, have started discussing other tricks photo-journalists use to manipulate photos.  Besides digitally altering photos, photojournalists have been known to stage photos and present them as authentic news events, move objects within a scene to create a more interesting or newsworthy photo, and give misleading captions to otherwise real photos that may have been taken in a different time and place.

The message to the media is simple:  While modern technology makes it easier for unethical journalists to act dishonestly, it also makes it easier for the public to keep the media in check. It is telling that the fraudulent photos were exposed by amateur photographers writing on blogs rather than Israeli military analysts.   It is no longer a case of big brother watching – it is that everyone can watch and scrutinize what the media is doing.  Long live the Internet!