The Illusion of Propaganda in the Digital World

With Iran showing off it's missle prowess this week, what's wrong with the front page of all these major newspapers?


One of those four launches never happened. The image was digitally altered from this photo:



With photos getting beamed around the world, in this case by Agence France-Presse, and published in newspapers and websites alike instantaneously, how do you know something is real?

This isn't a new problem. Think back to the O.J. Simpson trial when Time Magazine controversially altered a photo of the former football star for it's cover.

The challenge for media in the digital age is how to catch these things, and more importantly, how to acknowledge when they've been duped.

Iran clearly wanted to show four launches.

The real story is that their missile tests didn't quite go according to plan.