July 06 2007
TV News Uses Photoshopped Tornado
posted by Ana Samways at 7:50 am
There’s no doubt that tornadoes hit New Plymouth this week, but it looks like the image used (left) on Wednesday’s One News and 3 News had more humble beginnings.
After the recent carnage in New Plymouth a woman used her Photoshop expertise to superimpose a twister off the New Plymouth Foreshore. It was supposed to be an in-house office joke but somehow it ended up a visual fact on both news programmes.
The woman who created the image as a bit of fun said she was surprised the news organisations didn’t check its authenticity. “It took two minutes to make and was so fudged it wasn’t funny,” she said.
She also wondered if any money changed hands for the image.
TV3 used the image briefly near the end of the story and One News used it as their opening image.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Brilliant! Have linked up from Throng just now.
July 6th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Why is the report unsourced?
July 6th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
[...] For more check out Spare Room [...]
July 6th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Curious: The photoshopper didn’t want to be named to protect her workplace. She told me she has no idea how the images were sent to One News or TV3 and I believe her. I suspect someone either did it maliciously or genuinely didn’t realise they were fake.
July 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
TV News Uses Photoshopped Tornado…
There’s no doubt that tornadoes hit New Plymouth this week, but it looks like the image used on Wednesday’s One News and 3 News had more humble beginnings. After the recent carnage in New Plymouth a woman used her Photoshop expertise to superimpose…
July 6th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
news slogan for Adobe:
Photoshop, making the news real.
July 6th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
here’s and easy game: spot the source:
Google image search: Tornado
GIS: New Plymouth foreshore
I’ve seen fudgier photoshopping – clouds and so on are hard…
Doesn’t look like tornado weather, though. Guess it will do everyone good to be reminded not all pictures are real.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
We’ve just published statements from both TVNZ and TV3
July 6th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Stuff blogger: “it was submitted by an anonymous person, and upon closer inspection the people in the newsroom became a tad suspicious.“
July 6th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
The following is a statement provided to the nice people at Throng.co.nz from TV3:
“TV3 was misled into using this image very briefly. As soon as we were advised it was potentially fake, we removed it from our system. It has served as a timely reminder to be vigilant with viewer contributions, particularly given the technology available to people at home.”
The following is a statement provided to Throng.co.nz from TVNZ:
Like many of the media, TVNZ used this image in good faith for a short time, and stopped using the image as soon as we realised it might not be authentic. We are very aware that photographs and video footage can be digitally altered, and we have processes in place to check the material that is supplied to us by the public. Because of this incident, we are reviewing these processes.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I would have thought the folks at the TV stations might have had checks in place to verify the credibility of their content. I think they taught us some thing about that in Journalisim school.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Photoshopping images is a bit like smoking; it’s not gorwn-up and it’s not cool. We can all do it.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:23 am
[...] In a great piece of blogging by the folks at Spare Room, a New Zealand woman said she made a (clearly and obviously) photoshopped image of a tornado hitting New Plymouth, NZ as a joke to her coworkers. Well, the local television stations didn’t get the memo, and they posted it as news! [...]
July 7th, 2007 at 2:54 am
[...] Two New Zealand TV news stations used a heavily-Photoshopped picture of a tornado to spice up their reports. (Via Spare Room.) The woman who created the image as a bit of fun said she was surprised the news organisations didn’t check its authenticity. “It took two minutes to make and was so fudged it wasn’t funny,” she said. [...]
July 7th, 2007 at 3:34 am
[...] Don’t believe everything you see Published July 6th, 2007 General , Technology Spare Room has a great scoop on the photo that both TVNZ and TV3 used in their coverage of the New Plymouth tornados earlier in the week. [...]
July 9th, 2007 at 11:30 am
This story is now on Snopes.