2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies

He admitted to using Photoshop to add and darken smoke spirals in a photograph of Beirut, in order to make the damage appear worse.

[6] The first image was discovered on August 5, 2006 when blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs wrote that the first image "shows blatant evidence of manipulation" (Adobe Photoshop clone stamp),[4][7] Reuters removed all of Hajj's photographs from their site; Hajj claimed to not have intentionally altered the photo but was trying to remove "dust marks".

"[9] Head of PR Moira Whittle said: "Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures.

But coincidentally or not, photographers from various news organizations have been finding just that in rubble all over Lebanon" ... "with the only common denominator that all purport to depict Israel's destruction of Lebanese civilian life".

[2] Salam Daher, the head of the South Lebanon civil defense organisation, was accused by bloggers and websites of being a Hezbollah member and of using the bodies of children for propaganda purposes in photographs taken at the scene of the 2006 Qana airstrike.

[18] On 8 August, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper reported about a Hezbollah press tour of a bombed-out area in southern Beirut on 23 July 2006, during which Hezbollah operatives asked a group of empty ambulances to switch on their sirens and flashing lights for the benefit of the waiting press photographers, to give the impression that they were responding to casualties.

[19] The same day, Richard Landes and The Wall Street Journal editorial writer James Taranto challenged the validity of a photograph taken by Associated Press worker Lefteris Pitarakis.

[22] The Boston Globe quoted Kasim Shaalan as saying "A big fire came toward me, like in a dream" after a "rocket or missile had made a direct hit through the roof".

[23] A controversy developed when "zombie", the pseudonymous owner of the zombietime website, posted a long essay arguing (among other things) that the damage to the ambulance was far too light for a missile strike.

The report presents nothing more than its conjecture that Israel possesses and used unspecified new 'limited impact missiles designed to cause low collateral damage' fired from drones.

[27] Guardian features writer Patrick Barkham offered the following explanation for other reported time-stamp inconsistencies between different news agencies:[28] [B]loggers in Britain and the US want to prove that the mainstream media are swallowing Hizbullah propaganda.

One such photo appeared on the cover of the 31 July issue of U.S. News & World Report, with the inside caption, "Hezbollah guerilla poses at the site of an Israeli attack near Beirut".

Michelle Malkin and anonymous blogger Allahpundit stated that the fire in the background appeared to be a large pile of burning tires.