North Korea Sends Doctored Photo To International News Outlets

It was discovered on Wednesday that a photo displaying Kim Jong-Il‘s funeral procession, distributed by North Korea’s state news agency, had been doctored.

The doctored photo was disseminated to news agencies worldwide — even The New York Times carried the photograph — until the Associated Press contacted the paper, alerting them that some digital manipulation hi-jinks were afoot.

The Times went back with a digital forensics expert and found what exactly was removed from the photo.

If you notice in the far left of the photo, several people standing outside the crowd have been airbrushed out.

According to an analysis by The New York Times and the digital forensics expert Hany Farid of Dartmouth College, a photograph distributed by North Korea’s state news agency and transmitted by the European Pressphoto Agency was altered using Photoshop to remove the men after the picture was shot.

Another photo, taken from the same high vantage over the funeral route only seconds earlier by Kyodo News, a Japanese agency, and distributed by The Associated Press, revealed the changes.

New York Times writers J. David Goodman and David Furst surmise the photo was altered merely for “totalitarian aesthetics. With the men straggling around the sidelines, a certain martial perfection is lost. Without the men, the tight black bands of the crowd on either side look railroad straight.”

(h/t New York Times)

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