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Reuters Embroiled in "Loopy" Photoshop Fiasco · by Rafi Kam
Bloggers have caught the news service Reuters in yet another Photoshop scandal.
We received the initial word from HornyMediaSkeptic69 over IM earlier this afternoon:
“I was checking my Lupe feeds and Lupe’s Squidoo page and there was this breaking news item about how Lupe had just scratched his ass. And that’s when I noticed the photo.”
“The photo” shows Lupe with his eyes straining, standing on a normal looking city block with a brick building and a tree in the background.
“It’s actually a pretty well-known image,” said DarqAmber, a recently retired moderator of The Lesson Archives at the OkayPlayer Boards. “It’s a crop from a photo of Lupe standing beside a sign on a gate. Fiasco-ologists know it well as the ‘Full Extent of the Law’ promotional photo. Which makes doctoring it all the more absurd!”
HornyMediaSkeptic69 didn’t know the photo’s history but he knew he had seen that constipated face before. He looked back through his RSS reader through 200+ posts until he had found it.
And there it was at contactmusic.com in a story on how Lupe had slammed rapper Jay-Z for being “in it for the money.”
“The face was the same, but the background was so different. Like they wanted him to be in a much more apocalyptic world. I immediately thought of Beirut.”
Horny refers to the story from just a few months ago where a doctored news photo made Beirut under attack look a lot smokier than it actually was.
Although one can guess at the covert political or commercial motivations of a news source making a battle scene look worse than reality, speculators have been wondering why Reuters would supply this photo of Lupe Fiasco against a crimson-lit urban landscape replete with “John Woo doves”.
Queensbridge rapper Prodigy of the group Mobb Deep thinks he knows the reason.
“Yea, Lupe’s coming around now. I told niggaz back in ‘95 to get off that space shit, that shit don’t make no sense. So when I seen his album cover, you know I was gonna approach dude. Snatch his skateboard on some ol’ high school shit.”
“But you don’t sell like you thought, and you crash-land pretty quick, huh? All of a sudden you go from your little Rainbow Brite floating in space shit to some old Hell on Earth. I don’t want to say he’s biting our style but come on, I don’t really have to say it! So let me just warn Lupe about one thing… it’s not gonna work homey. I mean, nobody’s buying our shit neither.”
Meanwhile the man who discovered the story isn’t so sure that Lupe is copping Mobb Deep’s style but he does think the publicity machine is behind it.
The talkative blogger relates “when I first read that story about what Lupe said about Jay-Z, I felt some kind of way about it. Like first it was mainly if Lupe grew up with holes in his zapatos he woudn’t be saying that about Jay-Z! Then once I found out the picture was fake, I looked closer at the story and it’s almost like the whole thing is fake. The headline has a quote that looks made up and isn’t in the story. The whole paragraph especially how Lupe slammed Jay-Z isn’t really supported by the one line quote at the end. Seems like it’s all out of context.”
Which all begs the question, are rappers reluctant to wage rap beef just letting publicists and shady news sources handle their bizness?
Reuters has so far declined to comment on the photo that ran with today’s Lupe’s story as well as the rejected photos which were found by another blogger.
Lupe himself has commented but only to state his disappointment that the unused photos have leaked, calling himself a “three-time victim”.
Rejected Photos
Comments for "Reuters Embroiled in "Loopy" Photoshop Fiasco"
straight up stupid and well worth it
— sankofa Oct 3, 06:17 PM
If you ditching that holocaust picture at the last minute was a purposeful attempt at creating your own little photo mini-scandal, then I’ve gotta give it up.
That’s meta to the point where I barely understand it.
— Bol Oct 3, 06:18 PM
The meta has layers and they unfold like an onion.
Next I’ll be taking this piece to task. Actually you’ve already just done that. Nice catch.
— Rafi Oct 3, 06:22 PM
the internets are still outta control!
— *midnightheory* Oct 3, 09:37 PM
gotta love those photochops. and that prodigy quote is MINT!
— khal Oct 4, 09:24 AM
ok… and the scandal is what? that they cropped a photo? that they used a promotional that was also used elsewhere? that they adjusted the light balance?
i’m missing what’s “doctored” about it.
— tiffany Oct 4, 05:40 PM
tiffany, on the down-low the “scandal” is really just a joke to make light of the shittiness of this article (which contactmusic has apparently removed today). but yeah they ran the article with that silly red apocalyptic looking background behind the photo of lupe in the 3rd photo in this post. that’s real and you can still see it at the contact music url. that was the doctoring being referred to but not really the true target of this post… we’re sneaky like that. but way to make me spell it all out. jeez!
— Rafi Oct 4, 05:52 PM
you can still see the text of the article but not the image at contact music’s real source for this story (not reuters… following along? if they’re going to make up fake news items so will we!)
view the fine piece of journalism here
— Rafi Oct 4, 05:56 PM
— agent b Oct 4, 05:56 PM
This post is a gem for the time capsule. Whenever Rafi’s wife blows him well and then let’s the man get some sleep he is capable of dope shit.
— Billy Sunday Oct 5, 07:25 PM
you had to drag Squidoo into this, huh?
— Hashim Oct 8, 12:26 AM