Remember this scandal back in 08.06.06 ?

“Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out ‘blatant evidence of manipulation”.

Reuters’ head of PR says in response, “Reuters has suspended photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to photograph”.

“Photographer who sent altered image is same Reuters photographer behind many of images from Qana, which have also been subject of suspicions for being staged”.

Well Reuters has been caught literally red-handed again and this time it’s pictures of what happened after Israeli soldiers boarded the Gaza bound Mavi Marmara, and the ensuing violence on board.

You’ll notice the knife held by a member of IHH which is the Islamist group whose members attacked the Israel soldiers. It’s in the bottom hand on the right hand side.

There was a huge ongoing controversy as to whether passengers on the boat were armed so the knife was obviously extremely important.

So important apparently, that Reuters removed it!

And just too make things worse, in this next picture which has been lightened a lot we show that when Reuters removed the knife they also accidentally removed the image of a second wounded Israel soldier.

Here’s what Reuters has had to say so far.

“The images in question were made available in Istanbul, and following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges. When we realized that a dagger was inadvertently cropped from the images, Reuters immediately moved the original set, as well”.

It was obviously all 100% intentional and no amount of wriggling by Reuters will change the fact that what they did is totally unforgivable!

This expose is not about whether Gaza should or should not be blockaded, or whether Israeli soldiers should or should not have boarded the boat.

Reuters need to hold an immediate and ongoing investigation; people need to be fired; and a clear and precise public explanation needs to be made as to how and why this happened.

That a such a major news agency as Reuters manipulated both photos and the truth for a second time should be major news but it won’t be if you don’t get this information out there in a big way.

So if you care about truth in the media, then start informing friends, blogs and newspapers immediately.

And if you have both time and inclination and want to increase pressure, then contact Reuters directly and let them know how you feel!

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