OK, BP has confessed the Photoshop fakery that made its crisis control room look a lot busier by making blank monitors look live. BP blamed it on a free-lance photographer working for them–though as blogger John Aravosis (who originally spotted the fake on BP’s web site) noted, no professional photog would do such a completely sloppy job of it. As a former newsperson who followed doctored-photo cases that got otherwise good photographers fired on the spot, I agree that no professional would do such a ragged cut and paste. (click on marked photo at right to enlarge)
And now it turns out that this isn’t the only doctored photo–Aravosis found another one of a BP meeting with a video screen doctored into the background. How many more of these exist? I hope all my recently laid off news photographer friends are hunting online–and that newspaper, TV and online news desks that used BP’s handout photos are going back and examining the high-resolution versions.
Of course, Photoshopping is nothing new in the industry. BP may have learned the trick from the American Petroleum Institute, which got caught last year doctoring some racial diversity into the industry’s work force.