Last Tuesday, Vice President Cheney gave a keynote address to to the U.S. Labor Department’s 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings at the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C.

Here’s a photo (hat tip: Drudge Report) that Reuters posted:

It looks like the photographer must have scrambled around the room until he had the perfect angle and then snapped the shot. A quick Photoshop session to crop the photo and voila!

Ha ha, Reuters, very funny – yet another example of biased photojournalism from the mainstream media.

At least, that’s how it looked at first. But when I tried to see the shot from a wider angle, things started to look decidedly odd.

Did you see the word “Retire” in that photo?

After some searching, I found a photo taken by a Dept. of Labor photographer that shows the scene from a distance. There’s the word “Retirement,” easily three feet or more above his head!

Look at this page where all three images are together, it sure doesn’t seem like the word “Retire” could appear behind Cheney’s head based on the angle it was taken (you’d be seeing mostly the underside of his chin and part of the podium at the correct angle). This comparison superimposes the two photos of Cheney’s head, they’re very similar and yet “Retire” only appears in one of them. So they’ve really manipulated this one. I think it’s worse than the Condoleezza Rice “demonized” job.

Already you can’t believe what you read in the mainstream media and now it’s getting so you can’t believe what you see either. Manipulating photos like that has got to be against some code of ethics isn’t it?

[Update] Welcome RightWinged and Michelle Malkin readers! Settle in and stay awhile. You might also want to check out this post on the “Just Kidding” Bandit (be sure to check out the comment).

[Update] So Reuters does have a code of ethics! They just don’t hesitate to ignore it. Michelle Malkin is also following this story and has posted the relevant section from Reuters’s editorial policy, but here’s the important bit:

…We do not take sides and attempt to reflect in our stories, pictures and video the views of all sides. We are not in the business of glorifying one side or another or of disseminating propaganda. Reuters journalists do not offer their own opinions or views.

Liar, liar
Pants on fire
Maybe it’s time that you “Retire”

[Update] Well that was fun while it lasted. I sent this story to James Taranto to see if he wanted to include it in today’s Best of the Web. His opinion (and he should certainly know) is that:

It was probably taken from long distance with a zoom lens.

So, it looks like the “Retire” photo, blatant bit of bias that it is, is also probably genuine, assuming the Reuters photog had the right equipment. Oh well, sorry ’bout the kerfuffle.

[Update] Closure Alert! For the first time on this blog, we’ve actually solved a puzzle! Thanks to help from commenters Howard and tbrosz, I think we’ve figured out how the Cheney photo was taken. In short, the effect the photog used was a form of perspective distortion called a “dolly zoom.” For details, read the comments.

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