NYT Concedes Recession Was Photoshopped (PHOTOS)

Turns out the housing crisis-themed photo story from Sunday’s New York Times, which the paper had pulled offline amidst charges of photoshopping, was indeed digitally altered. The Times has published a statement in lieu of the slide show:

A reader…discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show. Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com.

On the NYT.com’s admittedly amazing Lens blog David Dunlap further expands, saying “Blurry as it may get, there’s no question that the digital rearrangement or insertion of physical objects constitutes manipulation that The Times will not accept.”

Wondering what all the fuss was about? Adam Gurno of Gurno.com, who was the first to call bulls**t on the photos at Metafilter, managed to grab some evidence before it went down and has provided us with the before-and-after pics. Seems some raw framing was enlarged and a power cord was removed. Lesson: You cannot fool the Internet.

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