Oh dear. Despite it being known last year that an iconic image of Iranian missiles rising from the desert had been Photoshopped to show more missiles than were actually there, they’ve repeated the photograph alongside a story today.
Fail
The newspapers’ grand defence of their existence often hinges on the supposed superiority of their factual veracity over the “rumour” and “noise” of the blogosphere. But thanks to the blogosphere, we now know that the newspapers will publish any old crap, regardless of the facts, when it suits them. Is the use of this photo anything significant? In itself, no – the story is real and serious. But to use a discredited image will do nothing to dispel the increasing feeling that newspapers are not fulfilling the purpose they claim for themselves. I’ve written this before, but if the papers don’t start ‘getting it’ (to use their own egregious phrase) soon, then they’re headed for irrelevancy.