In this world of Photoshop and other image-altering tools, what you see is not necessarily what you get. Once the absolute harbinger of truth, we’re all now learning to be just a little bit suspect, one doctored photo after another.
Take the many fake Abu Ghraib photos out there. Or, better yet, the British lefty publication, The Daily Mirror, choosing to run before checking hoax pictures of British troops relieving themselves on and abusing with rifles Iraqi detainees.
Suffice it to say that the editor has been asked to step down for so eagerly awaiting the publication of the pictures.
And who can forget the famous John Kerry photo depicting him up on a stage with Jane Fonda in his anti-Vietnam years. Even the New York Times discussed it.
But what about that cover photo from the LA Times that combined two different photos to make the photographed soldier seem more aggressive.
After discovering the change, the photographer was dismissed.
Back to Abu Ghraib, the Boston Globe is now apologizing for fake photos that passed editorial muster depicting U.S. soldiers raping Iraqi women.
Or what about the one with an American soldier posing next to Iraqi children holding a sign. The sign’s real, but the words aren’t. The most popular fake of this reads, “Lance Cpl. Boudreaux killed my dad, then knocked up my sister.” Hell, there’s even a Web site that allows you to compose your own sign message.
Another one states, “Your mother deserved to die for letting you live and not killing you when she had a chance.”
So what is an untrusting public to do? Disbelieve everything? Believe me, we’re starting to get there. Well, maybe we just tend to believe things that fit our ideological perspectives just a little bit more.