Adnan Hajj photographs controversy

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Adnan's digitally altered photograph of the aftermath of an IDF attack on Beirut, the photograph that got Hajj suspended from Reuters. (Smoke was digitally added.)

Before and after image manipulation.

Digitally altered photograph of an IAF F-16 deploying a single flare over Southern Lebanon; the flare was digitally duplicated to make it appear that several missiles were being fired.

The Adnan Hajj photographs controversy (also called Reutergate) involves photographs taken by Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer based in the Middle East, who had worked for Reuters over a period of more than 10 years. Hajj's photographs were presented as part of Reuters' news coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, but Reuters have admitted that at least two were significantly manipulated before being published.^[1]

After blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs wrote that that the first image "shows blatant evidence of manipulation",^[2] Reuters "killed" the 'photograph' and admitted that the photographer had altered it, saying "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience."^[3] Head of PR Moira Whittle said: "Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."^[3]

The second manipulated image was reported by the pseudonymous blogger "Rusty Shackleford" of the blog "My Pet Jawa".^[4] Reuters captioned it as showing an Israeli F-16 fighter jet firing ground-attack missiles "during an air strike on Nabatiyeh", but the F-16 was actually deploying defensive flares and the original photograph showed only one flare.^[5]

Bloggers also found two photographs by Hajj that appear to show the same scene of destruction, with a distinctive building in the middle background. The Reuters caption on one said "journalists are shown by a Hizbollah guerrilla group the damage caused by Israeli attacks on a Hizbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, July 24 2006" and the other depicted a "Lebanese woman ...[walking] past a building flattened during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs 5 August, 2006."^[6]

Another blogger found a photograph by Hajj which showed a woman whose apartment he claimed was destroyed by an Israeli bomb on July 22, and another photograph, apparently of the same woman, whose house Hajj claimed was destroyed on August 5.^[7]

On August 6, Reuters announced it would stop all cooperation with Adnan Hajj.^[8]. Hajj claimed he had just been trying to remove dust marks, and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under. Critics point out that this is impossible, as Hajj's doctored image added an entire plume of smoke, duplicated several buildings, and showed a repeating pattern indicating that one plume of smoke was "cloned" several times.^[9]^[10]

On August 7, Reuters decided to withdraw all 920 photos by Hajj from sale.^[8]

The charges against Hajj took place within a larger context of many allegations about misleading photographs coming out of the Israel-Lebanon conflict; see 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies. These allegations included charges that Hajj also staged photographs, including images of a rescue worker retrieving the body of a child killed in Israel's bombardment of Qana.^[11]