Reuters drops photographer over 'doctored' Lebanon image

Reuters withdrew the image on Sunday. Picture / Reuters

LONDON - News agency Reuters has dropped a freelance photographer after he allegedly doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut to show more smoke.

The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news websites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shi'ite Islamic group Hizbollah, now in its fourth week.

Reuters withdrew the doctored image on Sunday and replaced it with the unaltered photograph after several news blogs said it had been manipulated to show more smoke.

"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.

Hajj was also among several agency photographers whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict.

Reuters and other news organisations reviewed those images and have all rejected allegations that the photographs were staged.

- REUTERS