stinkyjournalism.org

Bloggers and news sites are calling out Reuters for its two cropped photos from the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship attacked by Israeli commandos on May 31.  As of June 14, Reuters has admitted it cropped one of the photos, but has not addressed the second photo or charges that Reuters’ crops were politically motivated.

The Mavi Marmara was supposedly carrying peaceful activists, the New York Times reported, but the photos with knives and blood present a different picture of the ship’s passengers as armed commandos - that is, when the knives and blood aren’t cropped out.

Little Green Footballs’ (LGF) Charles Johnson is credited with the find. He responded June 6 to Reuters’ defense that the cropping was inadvertent:

“That’s a very interesting way to crop the photo. Most people would consider that knife an important part of the context. There was a huge controversy over whether the activists were armed. Cropping out a knife, in a picture showing a soldier who’s apparently been stabbed, seems like a very odd editorial decision.”

LGF analyzed the first photo, which has been cropped to remove a knife, here and the second photo, which appears to have removed a pool of blood, another wounded person and a knife, here. LGF also noted that the AP used the same photo but didn’t crop it, unlike Reuters.

Israel National News wrote June 9 that LGF’s Johnson “has gained notoriety in the past for discovering journalistic lies.”  Johnson, whose site has been described as “right wing,” is credited with breaking the “Rathergate” scandal when he realized that the typefont used in CBS memo questioning former president George W. Bush’s National Guard service wasn’t available until recently, and therefore the memo was a fake.