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WASHINGTON --
The Associated Press on Friday suspended the use of photos provided by the Defense Department after the Army distributed a digitally altered photo of the U.S. military's first female four-star general.
The image of Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody is the second Army-provided photo the AP has eliminated from its service in the last two months.
The AP said that adjusting photos and other imagery, even for aesthetic reasons, damages the credibility of the information distributed by the military to news organizations and the public.
"For us, there's a zero-tolerance policy of adding or subtracting actual content from an image," said Santiago Lyon, the AP's director of photography.
Lyon said the AP is developing procedures to protect against further occurrences and, once those steps are in place, it will consider lifting the ban. He said the AP is also discussing the problem with the military.
Col. Cathy Abbott, chief of the Army's media relations division, said the Dunwoody photo did not violate Army policy that prohibits the cropping or editing of a photo to misrepresent the facts or change the circumstances of an event. She did not know who changed the photo or which Army office released it, she said.
Dunwoody was promoted to full general on Friday at a Pentagon ceremony attended by Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff.
In the original photo, the general appears to be sitting at a desk with a credenza and bookshelf behind her. Three stars on her uniform identify her as a lieutenant general, her rank before Friday's promotion.
The altered photo, distributed by the Army and run on the AP's photo wire Thursday, shows Dunwoody in fatigues in front of an American flag. Her rank, affixed to the front of a soldier's tunic, is not visible.
"We're not misrepresenting her," Abbott said. "The image is still clearly Gen. Dunwoody."
In September, the AP banned use of a photo of Army Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson, who was killed in Iraq. Dawson's face and shoulders appeared to have been digitally altered.
Abbott said Dawson's unit did not have an official photo of him and wanted one that could be used for a memorial service.
"That photo was released to the public strictly by accident," she said. "We apologized for that."
Bob Owen, deputy director of photography at the San Antonio Express-News, was the first to notice the changes in the Dawson and Dunwoody photos, finding the earlier versions on the Internet.
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This scrutiny is one reason the military news, local and national news and other documentary stories are questioned about the validity of their presentation are called to task about truth in reporting.
Granted if the promotion of Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody was important enough for Army PR, then the Army should have had a flag behind her at the time of the original photo shoot.
Not only is this deceptive, but also raises the question, maybe the army didnt give a hoot about the importance of the promotion of a Female General.
How many other stories does this apply to???
All digital images are altered even if its just to tweak the sharpness, levels, color, etc. Where do you draw the line. If it doesnt change the intent of the image or falsley represents the actual facts, whats the problem.
This is simply APs way to try and create negativity in an article that sould be upbeat. The typical media bias.
BY the way, I am a journalist too.
Puhleeze! Give the military a break! The digital retouching of this photo in no way demeans or detracts from the person or the story. I would guess that the alteration was done to make the picture seem more patriotic. You, however, knee-jerked and overstepped the limits of understanding. Get a real life, and come into the 21st century. Everyone modifies photos to make pictures more clearly display the intended subject in the proper light.
So its from this background that I call "BS" on the APs attitude about photographic images. Ive also written to the Toledo (Ohio) Blade on the subject.
If the AP and Blade were really sticking to their guns then we photographers would not be able to use telephoto lenses or wide angle lenses - because the images gathered are not "Normal". All of our photographs would have to be taken with a "standard" focal length lens.
Think about the beautiful photographs of basketball players in action that you see in Sports Illustrated. Sorry cant use flash anymore because thats not how the arena was "really" lit.
Speaking of flash that means we photographers could not have a flash on our camera to illuminate the subject. Everything would have to be available light.
Back in the days when we had to use a chemical darkroom to make enlargements we would lighten and darken our images all the time to make them viewable. Is the AP going to throw away all their award winning images as being "false"? I bet not.
This whole tempest in a teapot is BS. We photojournalists are STORY TELLERS (not liers). We illustrate the writers story with creative images. Every point of view or composition we make changes the story. Its our job to do that.
Now, of course Im not talking about adding a fourth rocket to a launch of three (a recent example) as that clearly is fraud. But in this example of the general all the military did was remove a distracting background and replace it with a more appropriate one. How different was that than taking her to a studio where a flag background was in place? Her face did not change, only the background.
Geez, AP get a grip!
Terry Thomas...
the photographer
Atlanta, Georgia USA
www.TerryThomasPhotos.com