CNS Falsely Impugns Reuters
Topic: CNSNews.com
A Sept. 15 CNSNews.com article by Marc Morano makes a mountain out of a molehill -- or, in this case, a bathroom break.

Morano strongly hints that a Reuters photographer violated his employer's policy against "doctoring" photos because a photo of President Bush writing a note during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council was "enhanced" to make the text of the note more readable. The note read: "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" Of course, if CNS didn't consider this photo "embarrassing," as the article's headline indicates, Morano wouldn't be doing this article.

Morano adds that "The incident has reminded some people of the CBS '60 Minutes' story in September of 2004 that alleged President Bush shirked his duty while with the Texas Air National Guard in the 1970s." That incident involved documents that were later determined to be unauthenticated. But Morano offers no evidence that the photo is a fake -- that anything was added or removed -- beyond citing "Internet blog speculation that the Reuters photo might have been doctored in the computer program Photoshop."

Nor does Morano explain why, as his headline claims, there is a "contradiction" between enhancing photos to make them look better -- something every publication does -- and Reuters' policy against "doctoring" photos.

It appears that Morano knows very little about Photoshop or digital photography (or regular photography, for that matter, where similar enhancing techniques are used), and it shows in this article.

UPDATE: Where was this "Internet blog speculation that the Reuters photo might have been doctored" that Morano cited coming from? From Matthew Sheffield at NewsBusters -- like CNS, operated by the Media Research Center. A little undisclosed self-dealing here?