Four missiles appear to rise into the air at an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert. An expert says the center right missile was added to the photograph. (SEPAH NEWS, via AFP)
by Katie Fretland
In 2006, Reuters said one of its freelance photographers altered an image of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut following an Israeli air strike in order to show more smoke than there was. 
In 2004, President Bush's campaign admitted doctoring a photograph of Bush speaking to troops, by moving the president in the photograph and copying a group of soldiers to fill in the space.
In 1994, a photograph of O.J. Simpson in Time magazine was altered to make his face appear with deep shadows. 
Now an expert says Iran doctored photos of a missile launch to show four missiles instead of three.
"There's no doubt the photo was doctored," Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation Program for the London-based International Institute For Strategic Studies, AP reports.
He said he believes Iran was exaggerating its capabilities by including a picture of one rocket that had failed.
Read more about famous doctored photographs in today's Chicago Tribune.
A gallery of altered photos can also be found at chicagtribune.com.
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Comments
As usual, the Swamp reporter manages to avoid the two main truths to come out of this fiasco:
1) that the mainstream media, including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, once again fell for the Iranian propaganda picture.
2) that it took a blogger to catch the "fauxtography". As the New York Times has admitted, "Little Green Footballs, a conservative blog, identified the altered image on Wednesday. Last year the blog pointed out a manipulated image that had been distributed by Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency. As in the case of Wednesday’s photograph and many others that the site has uncovered, the one from 2007 appeared to contain several cloned elements."
Bloggers do a better job of catching these fakes than the MSM do.
Posted by: Bruce | July 11, 2008 9:04 AM
At least President Bush would never, EVER use a doctored photograph with soldiers in the background. That would reduce them to mere props.
Posted by: steve braubacher | July 11, 2008 10:20 AM
Very good post. They should have captioned the OJ pic, THE SHADOW KNOWS. People forget, some of the mainstream media reporters need love too!
There's this interesting article out about the other stuff being reported about Iran. I don't say believe it, but just, you know, put it side by side with whatever the hell you've seen so far and make your mind up from there.
Posted by: Stefan | July 11, 2008 11:38 AM
Iran also faked us out with the boat incident several months ago. Seems like they know how to rattle the cage of a big superpower, especially one run by a couple of paranoids.
Posted by: Grandblvd03 | July 11, 2008 12:48 PM
Was there a doctored photograph in the Armageddon prophecy?
Posted by: justaskin | July 11, 2008 2:00 PM
How about those photoshopped fakes of Barack not saluting the flag when all the other candidates are???
Posted by: ornery | July 11, 2008 10:09 PM
Iran having one missile to fire is one missile to many.
VJ Machiavelli
http://www.vjmachiavelli.blogspot.com
Posted by: VJ Machiavelli | July 12, 2008 2:32 AM
I always thought TIME was unbiased but after seeing the pic of OJ on here I'm beginning to wonder!!! Think of the Ramsey family and the hell they went through with people saying"I know he(John) she (Patsy) did it." WE weren't on the sidewalk in Brentwood so we don't KNOW what happened!!!
Posted by: MLD | July 12, 2008 8:45 AM
Iran will defend it's identity.
Posted by: Amir | July 12, 2008 6:22 PM
What gets me is that they talk about only the center-right missile being adding when the two end missiles, well, you can overly them perfectly; their exactly the same except angle and slight scaling.The center-right missile they at least made the trailing smoke a little more opaque
Posted by: flhu | July 13, 2008 2:39 PM
i think the addition of the OJ photos in this other group is wrong.
i mean yes it was altered but not to make him appear more black or 'menacing'. that is just silly. it's a lens effect, simple as that, made to look darker and spooky sure, but not to sell/push his guilt or innocence, just to make the picture a bit more suitable for being on the front cover of a magazine. mug shots don't tend to be very artistic!
Posted by: natnat | July 14, 2008 9:27 PM