Politics

BP Caught "Photoshopping" Gulf Response Website Pictures

By Anne Landman

BP got caught "Photoshopping" pictures on its Gulf of Mexico oil spill response Web site. BP officials admitted that members of its staff had manipulated official images posted on its site, and promised to stop the practice. The most recent image was a photo apparently taken inside a helicopter cockpit which made it appear as though the 'copter was flying. Close examination, though, revealed part of a building that looks like a control tower in the upper left corner window, and the control gauges show that the door is open and a parking brake is engaged. Errors with the image were identified by a reader of Gizmodo.com, a technology news Web site. Other images were found to have been faked as well. A photo taken at BP's Houston office shows a team of employees meeting at a table in front of a large projection screen. In the original photo, the screen was blank, but the edited photo shows content on the screen. BP officials explained that the photo had been edited to "ensure the detail on the projection screen could be seen" by readers. In another photo, employees are shown sitting in front of a bank of screens containing views of underwater operations around the blown-out well. The image was doctored to add images to three of the screens, which were blank in the original photo.

Full post as published by PR Watch on July 24, 2010 (boomark / email).