(Photoshop credit: HA affiliate David Lunde)

I think Reuters should adopt the above image as its new logo. The little icon on the right is, as any recreational Adobe Photoshopper will tell you, the clone stamp tool. It’s what was used to digitally alter the smoke billows in Adnan Hajj’s infamous photo killed over the weekend after the LGF-led blogosphere blew the whistle. The clone stamp tool is also known as the rubber stamp tool, which is quite appropriate for a news service that seems to have made its mark rubber stamping pro-Hezbollah propaganda.

Moira Whittle, Reuters spokeswoman, e-mailed me this morning to tell me she would get back to me as soon as she can about the questions Rusty Shackleford raised regarding Adnan Hajj’s F-16 smoke trail photo. Jeff Harrell has more analysis and concludes that it has been “drastically retouched to change its content before it ran on the Reuters news wire.” Stay tuned.

Allah brings you up to date on all the rest.

If you want to see exactly how the Photoshop alterations were done, The Dissident Frogman has a must-see video live demonstration. Here’s a screenshot:

Let’s see the MSM provide their audience with this kind of information–assuming they start covering this story with the thoroughness it deserves.

American new coverage so far has been scant. As of 830am Eastern, a Google News search of “Reuters” and “smoke” yielded 25 results, which included several blog posts and mostly foreign dispatches. A few of the original reports:

JPost
Haaretz.com
NY Sun

Tom Blumer at Newsbusters tracks the MSM non-coverage.

***

An insider sends word that one organizational problem inside Reuters stems from layoffs of seasoned photo staff from the London and Washington picture desks, which used to police images from their regions and send to other regions for vetting before distributing them to clients. Apparently, those functions were all transferred to a central editing desk in Singapore.

I’m interested in hearing from others who are familiar with the situation.

***

Previous:

A smoke-clearing blogswarm
Reutergate: Picture kill
Where there’s smoke, there’s Photoshop?
Hot Air: The worst photoshop I’ve ever seen