Yesterday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s media operation, Sepah News, released a photograph of four missiles being fired (see below).
The photograph appeared on the front pages of many major newspapers, as well as the main online news sources, including BBC and NYTimes. Today’s caption in The Boston Globe reads, ” In a photo released on the news website of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, four long- and medium- range missiles rose from the Iranian desert yesterday.”
As the the NY Times blog on the media, The Lede, points out, as well as Little Green Footballs, who had already broken the story last night, the photo was likely altered before the Revolutionary Guard released it to the media. The sections circled in red appear to be cut and pasted from the sections circled in orange. Why would the Iranians do this? To cover up the misfire of the fourth missile.
The original photograph was given to Agence France-Presse on Wednesday. The Lede reports that the AFP retracted the image at 9:33 AM as “apparently digitally altered.”
The AP released this photo today, showing the three launched missiles and the one that failed to launch. The photographs are likely milliseconds apart.
Those familiar with the Al-Durah case already know that the Islamist enemies of the West have no qualms about feeding poorly staged forgeries to the Western news outlets, who have a record of swallowing them whole. Did the recent publicity of the Al-Durah case awaken some in the MSM to the possibility of forgeries in the Middle East? Do not forget, the AFP, who retracted the image this morning, is a French organization. I would hope they will be skeptical moving forward when publishing photos given to them by terrorist organizations.
Expect those who seek to minimize the threat of the Iranian nuclear program and missile development to claim that this episode vindicates their claims. They will say that if Iran cannot even launch their missiles probably, and has to use photoshop to frighten the West, then there is no place for our bellicose proclamations toward them. For example, this commenter in the NY Times:
i think bush will want to invade to take away their photoshop technology. We can’t wait until the smoking gun is a photoshop created image of an attack on the us
— Posted by jason
[…] beats Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs to the punch. Well done..again..Charles and hat tip Augean Stables and to Charles at LGF for the […]
Pingback by Fauxtography :: New MediaTheory — July 11, 2008 @ 3:07 am
I love the smell of fauxtography in the morning and I will believe that the Grey Lady is really interested in exposing it when she beats Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs to the punch. Well done..again..Charles. More at Newmediatheory.net:
Comment by Lorenz Gude — July 11, 2008 @ 3:24 am
[…] New York Times is to be commended for the correction, although they have been duped recently by the Iranians, along with the rest of the major media organizations. But the fact that a concerned mother can so […]
Pingback by Augean Stables » Desperate Zimbabwean Mother Dupes The New York Times — July 11, 2008 @ 10:26 am
when she beats Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs to the punch
uhuh.
Comment by oao — July 12, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Didn’t LGF link to a site that claimed that not only are these photos photoshopped, but they’re also two years old?
Comment by Phil — July 12, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
Comment by RaiulBaztepo — March 28, 2009 @ 7:48 pm