Reuters Admits It Tampered With Bombing Photo

Reuters, the prestigious international news agency, admitted yesterday that one of its pictures of the destruction caused by Israel's bombing of Beirut, had been altered with a computer graphics program. The agency said that it has suspended the Lebanese photographer responsible, Adnan Hajj, until further notice, and is investigating the incident. It has also removed the altered photo from its database and replaced it with the original. The fraud was discovered thanks to Internet bloggers, who were able to prove that the photograph had been altered using the Adobe Photoshop program. The altered version shows thick black smoke rising over buildings in Beirut following an Israel Defense Forces bombing on Saturday morning. The original photo shows a much thinner stream of smoke.