Curious about the Elements Communities opinion on this.

[BluePriest]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/economist-defends-photosh_n_636034.html

Yeah, I know its old, but I just saw it today. So the economist clearly broke the policy of reuters, however, thats not what Im asking your opinion on

Just say hypothetically, they didnt break the policy with this photo. Do you consider it misleading? A propaganda attempt? ect. i sorta thought so at first, until I read

Admiral Allen was removed by the crop and that the local parish president was removed "not to make a political point, but because the presence of an unknown woman would have been puzzling to readers."

which I admit, i would have thought, oh look a random woman. I may not consider this a big deal just because I followed the link from here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110121/pl_yblog_theticket/is-obama-dyeing-his-hair) and when it says a journal has been called out for altered photos, I generally tend to think its something more serious than this.

[El]

I do think it's misleading.  First, because it never happened, but is presented as a photograph.  Second, because without another person there it gives the impression that he's either sad or deep in thought, when in fact he's probably just listening to the woman next to him.

I agree that it's not a big deal.  All photographs leave out some context, and photographers probably often do as much misleading just by how they frame the photo than was done by this photoshop.

[Five In One]

Personally, I don't like altered photos in general, unless it's minor, simply because the resulting photo isn't exactly what happened. This, though, has MAJOR alterations, and gives an entirely different interpretation of the picture than what actually happened, like El said. I don't think it's right to feed the public false messages. They need the truth, even if it comes from a less stunning photo.

As you can see, I don't agree with this at all.

[Essence]

She violated Reuter's policies, that's bad.  Other than that, I couldn't care less.  Edits like that happen every day in text and even in thought.  I certainly understand her point about having a confusing second person in the picture.  The real question is, why is that the only picture she could find of the President standing around with oil rigs in the background? 

[Ekki]

The real question is, why is that the only picture she could find of the President standing around with oil rigs in the background? 

^^This.
I'll go deeper on-topic and forget this specific case.
People that take photos often make changes to the reality with different resources, and different reasons. I think what matter here is the reason.
Why take off a person of a photo? To help a cover-up because that person was supposed to be in jail, to protect a suspect or to discriminate. Whatever, what matters is the reasons, and thus, I can't judge this photo, because my knowledge about the topic is 0 (zero).

[BluePriest]

The real question is, why is that the only picture she could find of the President standing around with oil rigs in the background? 

^^This.
I'll go deeper on-topic and forget this specific case.
People that take photos often make changes to the reality with different resources, and different reasons. I think what matter here is the reason.
Why take off a person of a photo? To help a cover-up because that person was supposed to be in jail, to protect a suspect or to discriminate. Whatever, what matters is the reasons, and thus, I can't judge this photo, because my knowledge about the topic is 0 (zero).

I think the oil rigs were intentional due to it being about the oil spill. And they "say" th person was removed because people would think "whos that random person". If you want to believe them or not thats up to you though. If thats there true intentions, then aside from them breaking a copyright issue I have no problem with it

[Essence]

The problem is that news media is a marriage of both a private industry to gain money and An institution of informing the public.

This is probably the single truest statement in this thread.

[Ekki]

The problem is that news media is a marriage of both a private industry to gain money and An institution of informing the public.

This is probably the single truest statement in this thread.

^^This, is seriously one of the biggest problems of our world  And globalization doesn't help. At all.
[/off-topic]

[coinich]

The problem is that news media is a marriage of both a private industry to gain money and An institution of informing the public.

This is probably the single truest statement in this thread.

Perhaps, but who do you trust to give you the news?  One source (doesn't even have to be governmental) or a thousand that contain many inaccuracies but collectively provide more information?

To be fair, I do wish political commentary and such would remain in the editorials, but thats not going to happen, nor has it ever.  Last I checked Fox was fair and balanced compared to the standards of a century ago, and I still don't see the bias today.  Frankly, I lean to the right, so that could be my own bias clouding my judgment however.

[BluePriest]

So one final question, and then I probably wont coment in this thread anymore. What if there was a note that said *emphasis added  or something to that degree that let you know the photo was altered to prove a point.

[Neopergoss]

I'm sorry, but the establishment  press coverage here is so hopelessly biased that almost anything else is better. Where were they when the government lied about WMD in Iraq? They were clamoring for the Iraqi playing cards (

&feature=youtu.be) that the US military was handing out. Even the New York Times asks (

) the US government's permission (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/21/nyt/index.html) before publishing anything controversial. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601716.html) The mainstream American press can be effectively considered state propaganda. (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/30/wikileaks) There are of course a few exceptions (by that I mean a few journalists, not a few mainstream institutions), but by and large this is true.

Also, see this. (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/04/burns/index.html)