Think Progess Uses Doctored Photo to Smear Fox?
Updated! Most people are familiar with the dubious practices of Think Progress, but their latest smear is so drenched in irony that we couldn't resist exposing it:
O’Reilly Uses Doctored Photo Of NBC PresidentOf course, like any such attack from Think Propaganda, the report quickly spread through the Fox hater echo chamber:
...O’Reilly has added his own doctored image to the Fox repetoire, in a segment attacking NBC President Jeffery Zucker — apparently just for being the president of O’Reilly’s greatest rival:
The image is stretched to make Zucker look unflattering. Compare O’Reilly’s photo to the original:
- Gholston Post: Fox News Again Caught Unethically Doctoring Photos
- Greenlee Gazette: They Did It Again: Fox "News" Alters Photograph
- Leftword Blog
- Newsvine
Did you catch it? Here's the Think Propganda screengrab again:
And here's a screengrab taken directly off the Fox News Channel broadcast clip you just saw:
To make it crystal clear, the Think Propaganda "screengrab" is on the left, the actual Fox broadcast on the right:
No, your eyes do not deceive you. It wasn't Bill O'Reilly or Fox who altered the photograph. It was Think Progress! They squeezed it in on the sides, darkened it up a bit, and then claimed it was a Fox photoshop job. While all along it was Think Progress who "unethically" doctored the image, just to smear Fox with another lie.
Now that they are caught, will they fess up and apologize? What about all the others who gleefully repeated their lie? Post your predictions in the comments.
UPDATE: Inside Cable News takes on our analysis with one of their own. They chalk up the excessive skinniness of the Think Progress screen grab to variations among cable providers, which doesn't explain why this one Think Progress screengrab shows a distortion not present in any of their others. Or what cable provider would broadcast such obviously squeezed images. Although ICN tries to concoct an explanation that would absolve TP, they basically concede our main point--that Think Progress used an image that was excessively squeezed.
ICN notes that even correcting for the squeezed image posted by TP, their comparisons still show a small vertical stretch in the Fox graphic. We take their point, but it's certainly far less of a differential than with the obviously squeezed TP image, and barely noticeable without the A/B comparison. This time ICN does not make the argument that it could be the result of variations among cable carriers, but this slight variation is far removed from the grotesque differential suggested by TP's use of an obviously squeezed screengrab. They should not be let off the hook for that.
A third point ICN makes is that Zucker's right ear is not visible in the Fox slide, which they cite as clear proof of a photoshopping job. Well, it's obvious Zucker's head was digitally placed into the box design with a blue background (The Factor uses these for head shots) and removing the original background could inadvertently remove Zucker's ear as well. But there is no reason why Zucker's ear would go missing if someone were just stretching the image, so this conclusive final argument from ICN isn't really proof of intentional stretching at all. Just proof of something we already knew: Fox changed the background color.
What do you think? Was Think Progress right all along? Or did they skew their argument by using a doctored image? Comments are open. fox news tp af bor
