Fried Rice

What to make of this? Florida Cracker reports that the photo on the left was the original as moved by the Associated Press, and the version on the right, with the ghoulish eyes, was the doctored version that appeared in USA Today.

By the time this was called to my attention, USA Today had taken down the doctored version and attached this note:

Editor's note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA TODAY's editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by a properly adjusted copy. Photos published online are routinely cropped for size and adjusted for brightness and sharpness to optimize their appearance. In this case, after sharpening the photo for clarity, the editor brightened a portion of Rice's face, giving her eyes an unnatural appearance. This resulted in a distortion of the original not in keeping with our editorial standards.

At first, I was inclined to give the USA Today editors the benefit of the doubt. From the small version Florida Cracker posted, the original photo looked a bit fuzzy. Perhaps they just did a burn on her face, and upped the contrast, to make the image more sharp.

But then I logged on to the AP photo wire art work and saw the original picture. It's just as sharp as can be. It was perfectly usable as it was. There was no need to monkey with it.

What really turned my thinking on this, though, was the search I used to find the picture. It called up all 178 "Condoleezza Rice" images that USA Today had the option of using to illustrate its article. In most of them, she's smiling, she looks radiant and warm. But USA Today chose by far the grimmest picture of her that was then available.

Even worse, they chose a picture that had no connection to the story they were running. The story is datelined Washington, and has quotes from Rice as she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, fielding "pointed" questions. And boy, does she look unhappy about it, right?

Except the AP photo's caption (not available on the USA Today article) identifies this picture this way: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looks on during a joint news conference with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after their meeting in Moscow, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005."

Now check the date of the USA Today article: Oct. 19. They dug up a four day old stale picture of Condi, and they slapped it into their story.

But not before they altered it to make her look like an extra from the "Thriller" video.

Strike three? I think so. Probably strike four, but I lost count.

[Hat tip, Marc]

UPDATE: Lol; Florida Cracker now has a "Thriller" screen grab up, for comparison's sake. Damn, I was righter than I realized.