Exposes You Won't See On Media Watch

Global news agency Reuters is in a meltdown this week over falsified photos that were sent out 'over the wire' from photographers covering the conflict in Lebanon.

The agency uses local 'stringers' to provide copy and pictures and was forced to withdraw almost a thousand photographs by photographer Adnan Hajj after a US website exposed his fakery.

Hajj used a PhotoShop tool to make clouds of smoke billowing from an airstrike on Beirut look worse than they actually were. But his inept use of the 'clone' tool was obvious to even PhotoShop amateurs who pointed out that Hajj had even duplicated some buildings in the landscape.

The fake was exposed by the blog site Little Green Footballs on Saturday and 48 hours later another blog site uncovered another Hajj photo in which a plane dropping a single defensive flare had been doctored to show multiple flares plus four 'bombs'.

After a firestorm of protest on the Internet, Reuters issued 'Photo Kill' alerts for the images and sacked Hajj whose claims that he was just trying to touch out dust marks under poor lighting conditions didn't wash.

One wonders why he bothered - the scene in his original photo looked bad enough to begin with.

Meanwhile, mainstream news agencies generally are under further attack for their coverage of the Lebanon tragedy. A full video wrap up from US online commentator Michelle Malkin.