BP Caught Photoshopping Disaster Response Photos 560
An anonymous reader tipped a post up on Americablog revealing that BP Photoshopped a fake photo of their crisis command center and posted it on their main site. The blogger commented, "I guess if you're doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center." While this story was just being picked up by the Washington Post, an Americablog reader spotted another doctored BP photo on their website, this time of a "top kill" working group. How many others?
Horrible photoshopping at that (Score:4, Informative)
The first photo had some easy to spot glitches and EXIF data that indicated the photo was nine years old.
The second photo was so obviously photoshopped it was ridiculous.
Clearly there's a business opportunity here, I know I could throw together much better fakes in under an hour and even if I billed them for a full day of labor it would probably still cost them less than what this horribly botched photoshop job cost them...
Re:What's the fuss (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who cares (Score:3, Informative)
It's a fake crisis, like so many others. Photoshopped news is not that rare. And often, it's for more than just aesthetics
http://www.speroforum.com/a/34500/Reuters-admits-to-doctored-photos-of-Gaza-Flotilla [speroforum.com]
(after all the story was that Israel attacked "unarmed" protestors, can't have huge knives in the hands of protestors, especially when they appear to be using them on soldiers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War_photographs_controversies [wikipedia.org]
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184452.php [mypetjawa.mu.nu]
I guess in some cases, these fotos are simply "fake, but accurate", right ? And then there are the tings never shown :
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/02/a-dispatch-from.php [michaeltotten.com]
Re:More BP news... (Score:5, Informative)
If I was Cameron I would have just ignored those senators. The UK doesn't tell the US what to do with their prisoners, the US shouldn't tell the UK what to do with theirs. The guy probably would have been released on appeal anyway. The evidence against him was shockingly bad and should've been laughed out of court.
Re:Horrible photoshopping at that (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Horrible photoshopping at that (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, noticed that later, apparently they used a camera that wasn't released until 2007. The images are still clearly doctored though.
And this is a story why? (Score:2, Informative)
Yesterday I photoshopped(actually, Paint.netted) a picture for my job's website. It could mean we hate the environment....or that we're covering up a reflection in the window. Just in case, we better go with the hating the environment angle, because thats the responsible thing to report.
D
Re:So the story is... (Score:5, Informative)
BP posted the original [bp.com]. All they photochopped were three of the screens, two of which were blank (one says "loading") and one of which looks like it's staring directly at a bright light. You'll also notice the source for the replacement screens are just three of the other existing screens.
Essentially it's a piss poor (and I mean PISS poor... anyone with photoshop experience could hack that trash out in minutes) touch-up by a company that should be acutely aware of it's current reputation.
TLDR version.... BP /facepalm
Re:OMG!!!! NOES11111 (Score:2, Informative)
Ah, so the "lie" you speak of is just something that you don't believe, but may actually not be a lie.
Re:OMG!!!! NOES11111 (Score:2, Informative)
On that basis, you could accuse all magazine covers of ill will. They are all photoshopped.
In fact you could accuse the majority of commercial photography of ill will. Most are photoshopped.
You could even accuse your wife or mother of ill will. That make-up is just deceptive, and is obviously ill will, rather just to improve the aesthetics.
Then it would likely be perjury. But this is not a court of law. It's a photo on a website, which has been modified to improve the aesthetics.
Re:More BP news... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quality of work... (Score:2, Informative)
That's because they filmed it all on location. The secret world government has had several moon bases ever since Roswell. The so-called "space race" was just a way to siphon off trillions of dollars from people all over the world in order to pay for the war against the Lizardmen, which we subsequently lost (and that's where Barack Obama came from). Why won't they tell us the truth!?!?
Re:More BP news... (Score:1, Informative)
You are mistaken if you think people are astroturfing. There is a genuine and fairly widespread resentment in the UK about the way the US has handled this oil spill. It is somewhat overdone I'll admit, and seems to be mainly whipped up by a section of the British media, but it is real.
The main thing is the hypocrisy: look at how American corporations behave around the world - Union Carbide in Bhopal [wikipedia.org] (15000 dead, 500000 exposed, $450 million in compensation, and the CEO fled to the US and has refused to answer manslaughter charges) being the obvious example since the results of the criminal charges against Indian executives coincided with the beginning of the oil spill - and then look at the cheap populism of American politicians regarding the BP spill.
This is why media access is so important (Score:2, Informative)
PR stands for public relations, i.e. public image protection, and not: People's Right to know.
You cannot really ever trust a company covering their own relief/cleanup/repair efforts in an objective way. They have a vested interest in making themselves look as good as possible, while attributing any issues or setbacks, either to someone else, or to some "inherent difficulty", even if actually due to management failure.
Re:So the story is... (Score:3, Informative)
Basically you have to be incompetent all around to get a shitty photo in the first place.
LMAO! But if they'd hired Lord Lichfield you folks'd be up in arms at the waste of money hiring a photographer who's got a clue!
And we're talking about the biggest manmade ecological disaster in quite some time, I want to see every fucking screen in use in there 24/7 ...
COAFB! And you wonder why they wanted to make it look like all the screens were in use - it's because of muppets like you who think that all the BP staff, from the highest exec to the cleaners in their London HQ should somehow be lending a hand during this monumental FUBAR! Get a grip people!
What kind of people are they hiring to work on the spill?
I expect they've got all their Marketing Dept, car pool drivers, warehouse personnel, programmers, canteen staff, and librarians taking diving lessons and "Deep Sea Drilling for the Layman" courses as we speak, so they can be parachuted in to help! (and parachuting lessons, obviously!)
Really! What's with all the hysteria? This is the Salem Witch trials vs MacCarthyism in a fight to the death to see who can make their heads explode first! So many people digging so deep to find anything at all to discredit BP Amoco when they're already so damaged there's no point, unless you're after a share of the fallout?
The latest is the stories about BP lobbying for the release of al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber. Now I say "Lockerbie Bomber but there's really a lot of evidence to suggest he wasn't the one, and the UK and US Govs know it and certainly don't want anyone raking over those old coals - no sirree-bob, but if BP were looking at oil interests off the coast of Libya and helped with some lobbying that suddenly makes the oil spill worse - regardless of the fact that many US oil companies are also sniffing around Libya and Gaddaffi at the moment, and ANYTHING that can be done to damage BP Amoco further can only help the profits of those American companies!
OK OK ... I know BP aren't the innocent fluffy bunnies they'd like us to think they are, but there's one hell of an elephant in the room when the US cries foul over this but did NOTHING, ZIP, NADA about events like Bhopal [wikipedia.org] until last month when some American company was fined $100000 or so - and that affected 100's of thousands of people with 15000 deaths - FORTY TWO YEARS AGO!
And why is BP taking all the flak when Transocean owned and operated the drill rig. Haliburton is a drilling services company that poured the cement plug that likely failed prior to the blowout. Schlumberger, another drilling-services contractor, was on the rig in the days leading up to the explosion to perform key safety tests, though their services were never put to use, and Cameron made the blowout preventer that failed to stop the uncontrolled flow of oil and gas. Sure, it's BP's responsibility to clean up, and they do seem to be actively doing so, but don't tell me the other companies carry none of the blame for the failure because that's just unpossible!
Foreground laptop playing the sims? (Score:3, Informative)
Is it just me... or does the picture at:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1xQeOPE9ePU/TEXJFhjMElI/AAAAAAAAFDk/Susb7Y6PP9I/s1600/fake_GOM_simops_operations_top_kill_houston.jpg [blogspot.com]
have a laptop on the bottom left that's left running the sims... or sim city... or something like that?
Re:Who cares (Score:3, Informative)
Oil does in fact equal bad regardless of public opinion. The worst part is, it's a necessary evil in today's world. BP's problem is that they cut corners for money while drilling, ignored their engineers, and caused a catastrophe that killed people and badly polluted the entire Gilf of Mexico and ruined the Livelihoods, lifestyles and lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
BP deserves no pity and no slack. Period. I don't care how many puppies they tickle. Someone should be in prison for what BP did.
Re:Who cares?? Well, I care! (Score:3, Informative)
Another example of "aesthetics" would be the chemical dispersants used to hide the oil spill below the surface of the water.