Truthfulness of news photography placed in doubt

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The LA Times has apparently sacked a photographer on location in southern Iraq for digitally altering a photograph, portraying a British soldier with Iraqi civilians. The striking image was used by the newspaper on the front page of one of its recent editions.

According to an announcement on the LA Times Web site, staff photographer, Brian Walski, was dismissed after he confirmed that the picture used was digitally altered to 'improve' its composition. Such alteration of news photos is forbidden by the newspaper.

You can see the offending image here along with the original shots from which parts were used to create the new composite photo.

Walski has done a very skilled job of combining the elements of two images that were taken seconds apart, but does the result tell a subtly different story? How commonplace is such digital alteration of wired news images? Is this practice ever acceptable?

LA Times explanation

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