AP Suspends DoD Over Altered US Army Photo

djupedal notes a story up at the BBC about the Associated Press's suspension of the use of Department of Defense photos after a photo of General Ann Dunwoody was found to have been altered (before and after comparison). "The Pentagon has become embroiled in a row after the US Army released a photo of a general to the media which was found to have been digitally altered. Ann Dunwoody was shown in front of the US flag but it later emerged that this background had been added. The Associated Press news agency subsequently suspended the use of US Department of Defense photos. 'For us, there's a zero-tolerance policy of adding or subtracting actual content from an image,' said Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography."

Unadultered Alterations

The alterations of of images transposed from within the confines of allocated semiconductor memory is a travesty of trustworthiness that makes on think of the simpler days of the chemical process for capturing images and storage on layered flexible devices. Those recollections also recoup melancholy days of sipping the Tranya amidst the family on late autumn holidays. One weeps for what this has become.

Re:Unadultered Alterations

Strange how they don't have any issues at all publishing altered photos from Hezbollah

Actually, they do have an issue with it, and they're very embarrassed about getting suckered by the perps. That's why they're so touchy about it now.

-jcr

My eyes, they burn!

That's not only altered, but altered badly. You'd think the US armed forces could afford to hire a decent graphic designer!

Re:My eyes, they burn!

Actually, I was thinking exactly the opposite. If that original really was that blurry and grainy, and the Photoshop artist made it that sharp and natural looking, it was an incredible job. I'm staring at it, and I don't even know why you would think it was bad. The head is too sharp against the flag?

Re:My eyes, they burn!

The original looks bad because it's a low-res version, and the altered version looks better because it's a hi-res version from AP. The bad photoshopping is how completely synthetic the flag looks. It doesn't even look passably real. A decent photoshop would at least use a real picture of a flag with similar lighting to the original photo, so the contrast between the subject and background is so jarring it's obviously been altered.

Re:My eyes, they burn!

In order to protect the public right to be informed, and in light of the Department of Defenses demonstration that they have no moral qualms about releasing doctored photos, we've decided that we're not going to show you anything they release whatsoever. In order to protect you, the citizen, and your right to be informed. Now, please pay attention as this airbrushed supermodel tells you how wonderful Coke is.

yeah...

Because if there's going to be any altering of photos for impact, it damn well is going to be done by the media themselves! Wouldn't want to subvert their authority to alter perception now would we?

Remember Zombietime? [zombietime.com]

Making an example

It's good that they're taking a firm stance and everything, but are they absolutely confident that none of their other pictures are photoshopped? Not everybody who doctors image is a clueless muppet [blogspot.com].

I hate to say this

But I think it's AP that are being rather pathetic on this one.

Such a mountain is being made out of a molehill with this story. Certainly if it was like the most recent Israel/Lebanon war where Reuters and co. had been daft enough to fall for doctored photos of Lebanon to make it look like the damage was worse than it was it'd be one thing but here we're talking about a picture of a member of the US military having her picture changed from standing in front of her office wall, to standing in front of a US flag. That really has absolutely no propaganda value whatsoever, I can't imagine even the most over the top patriotic American shouting "OMG SHES IN FRONT OF A US FLAG FUCK YEAH!" at the excitement of seeing the picture in question.

I'm not sure if it's AP's fault for it being blown out of proportion or whether they simply followed protocol on a hardline rule of no doctored photos no matter how harmless (although that has implications of it's own, hardly any photo is a raw image now without at least automatic alterations by cameras) or whether the fault lies at the feet of other media organisations.

When I saw this originally on the BBC the other day I have to admit it's arguably the most pointless slow-news day excuse for a story I'd seen in a while.

You hit the nail on the head

The AP is making a mountain out of a molehill because they are trying to remove the stain on their industry that they are other so called leaders have put there. As such they need to exaggerate even the silliest of things and scream like a schoolyard brat "see see see"

I gave up long ago believing anything from Reuters when it came to stories involving Israel and for that matter the entire Middle East. They just lost their right to be trusted.

Re:You hit the nail on the head

AP and Reuters have more to worry about than just photos. Their so-called "journalism" is just as fake and altered as they claim these photos to be. The difference is that the pentagon's photo alteration are the equivelent of correcting grammer and using different, but synonmous words.

In order to rise to the level of fraud AP and Reuters typically exhibit in their journalism, the Pentagon would have had to put a mustache on her and make her a minority of some kind.

Not Surprised

I served in the Army for 7+ years. Three years of which in a PAO (Public Affairs Office), that handles press releases, photo's, etc. Most people have this idea that there is this all encompassing control in the Army, as well as a focused strategy of deception. Believe me.. there isn't, they aren't that smart (like most companies we all work for).

This picture is photoshopped badly because just like any small shop in the civilian world, some SPC or PFC got a request for a photo of Gen Whats Herface, thought it would be "cool" to use this new app on my computer. He then shows the photo to the Captain(or Major) who is the "Manager" of the office... He's technically a dud (like most Managers) and thinks it's awesome. So they hand it over.

Point is, don't forgot the U.S. Army isn't unlike most Corporations when it comes to things other than "War (Training, etc."), they have bad manager's, are poorly run, make mistakes... I've personally NEVER seen a case where they were trying to cover something up, or lie, and I was working during the Cuban Camp setups in Central America (sh!t hit the fan with that one). Nobody even thought about lying or being deceptive, there was just this idea that you just don't do it, because we're soldiers, it's a black eye when the truth does come out, and it always does. (Now, when it comes to Operational Information, ie War. that is different. You don't have press releases that will tell the enemy 'Hey we'll be there next Friday, act surprised')

On the flipside, when deceptive things happen or poor photoshop jobs are released, it's usually poor decisions by LOCAL offices or commands. It's not an all encompassing strategy.

Just my personal experience :-)

Re:Not Surprised

I can't for the life of me figure that anti-military nonsense out. How the hell can people maintain 1. The military is a huge evil system hell bent on massive deception and evil lies while also maintaining 2. The military is a bunch of clueless incompetents that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. The only thing I can get out of this is the people trying to maintian this kind of nonsense are actually saying "We are the biggest bunch of braindead morons for being so easily decieved by a bunch of incompentent fools".

Honestly, from my experience I would almost expect things to have gone the other direction from what you lay out. The Captain/Major says "We need a photo of Gen Whosits, but she is too busy for us. Go dig up a picture of her and make it look like a nice handout picture". Given that you can walk into almost any government building and see pictures of the entire chain of command for that organization all the way up to the President, and almost every one of those photos are identical with the person sitting in front of a flag with perfect lighting etc... My guess it was downward directed because the Gen was too busy to actually stop to have one of these pictures done so they found an existing picture and turned it into one of these.

For all their college education so many of the stupid ideas come from the officers...poor enlisted folk just get blamed for the execution of such goofball ideas.

Overblown and then some

If the AP really has a policy regarding altered images then they did the right thing.

But the reality of this situation is probably that someone needed a press-suitable head shot of the General, snapped a quick pic in her office and edited in a background. They also appear to have smoothed out her face, but that is part of a professional portrait photo these days.

The exact same image would likely have been fine if it had been done at the local Wal*mart portrait place in front of a flag backdrop and the guy there had blurred the focus a little to have a similar effect on her face.

There are photos that are fact reporting, and there are photos that are PR head shots. This is a PR head shot, and nobody should think that it in any way reflects reality.

My boss, a low-level director at my company, had a head shot done recently for PR reasons. I barely recognize him in it.

I feel sorry for General Dunwoody in this; she was just made the first US female 4-star general three days ago, and now she has to put up with this stupidity.

Re:So what was he *really* standing in front of?

Certainly it would take all of the fun out of the thread to actually read the story and see the original photo.

Re:So what was he *really* standing in front of?

funny, to me the biggest difference is her face, she's made to look about 20 years younger than she looks on the original.

Re:So what was he *really* standing in front of?

Looking at the edited photo, I have to wonder how they found out that it didn't come right out of the camera like that. I mean, I've seen quite a few 'shops in my time, and I got nothing. *cough*

Re:So what was he *really* standing in front of?

Actually, that looks like a standard issue high ranking military officer's office.

Basically, it is a crappy picture of her sitting in her office.

100% agree

If the photograph had been doctored to hide something or to give a wrong impression it would have been different. If I was going on a blind date with her, then yeah there might be a problem - but this is clearly just simple marketing.

The clearly rendered US flag and dodgy edging around her hair are just too obvious for this to reflect anything sinister. Maybe the photograph could have been rejected, and reminder of policy sent - but blocking them? that's just nuts.

This is someone trying to score political points and has nothing to do with integrity.

This is a military person

Actually its common for business execs to have their logo in their picture so why wouldn't a General or even regular soldier have a flag in theirs? Sorry if it offends but many of us are actually very proud of our country, its heritage, and as such don't see reason to not celebrate it which can mean having the flag visible.

I guess its different elsewhere but we surrounded ourselves with the symbols of our freedom when we split from England, notice all the flags pictured then and the importance of some in song?

You did highlight the major difference though, we don't have to do it but we do so out of our own free will. Because of that we may seem excessive but there should never be anything wrong with such pride in one's country.

It would be more embarrassing to me to live somewhere where I would not feel comfortable showing it

Re:The US and US flags

many of us began each day saying the pledge of allegiance

Which also I find quite bizarre. Talk about indoctrination from an early age. But I also find the obsession in the US with flags a little disturbing. In the UK, you won't see hardly any flags. Maybe on a few government buildings etc. It's seen as rather tasteless, rather low-brow. Duh, me Tarzan, me light fire, me wave flag.

Re:Sharpening

I'm guessing the left picture is not the original, there's severe compression artefacting for one. But the flag is not the only alteration, you'll notice heavy airbrushing over the face as well as general tonal alterations - although done considerably better than the background switch. The shiny highlights from the flash used have been toned down and they've removed a number of lines on her face, especially around the eyes.

Re:For $DEITYs sake

Yeah, I have to agree with this... I think AP is being pissy for pissy's sake. It's a simple portait (possibly because there's no professional portrait available?) intended to do nothing but show what she looks like. And frankly, a professional portrait done in a studio would have been touched up too. This photo is not trying to capture an event or otherwise document anything really at all. I can guess what happened because I've done it -- grab a person in the hall, take a photo of them, Photoshop into a pretty head shot for their web page or whatever.

Re:For $DEITYs sake

But it's not being used as a logo. It's being used to identify a person.

"For us, there's a zero-tolerance policy of adding or subtracting actual content from an image," said Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography.

You know, if the army is "promoting" her, in a literal and figurative sense, would it have been so hard to send someone around with a camera and take a decent picture of her in front of a flag?

Photoshoppery from my government, even if it's just to make our leadership appear more endearing to the masses, is a bad habit at the very least.

Re:For $DEITYs sake

This comment is spot-on. If the AP is cracking down on the DoD for this, they also need to crack down on PR firms that issue retouched photos of celebrities.

I think I would agree with the AP if the background they added made it look like she was in the field or something. That would have been a gross misrepresentation of the facts. This was just a headshot. The only people who should be upset at the retouching are people interested in dating the General.

And let's not forget the AP probably would have whined (albeit, not publicly) had the DoD issued the original, grainy photo with the cluttered background.