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Newsnight gets its hands on doctored photo

  • Newsnight
  • 19 Oct 07, 05:20 PM

A minister and a doctored photo - it was just too hard to resist.

purnell1.jpg
Standing at an odd angle at the edge of a group of MPs in Manchester last month - there's something just not quite right about James Purnell's appearance.

The reason is - he wasn't there.

He had arrived late - after everyone else had gone - and then agreed to have his photograph taken in the same spot - but was adamant that he did not agree to the images being merged.

The trust held up its hands - - but it refused to release the staged photo of James Purnell.

purnell2.jpg

We wanted to see the original photo and sent a Freedom of Information request asking for a copy. To our amazement we got it.

Not the biggest exclusive we've ever had, but we're rather proud of it.

The question remains, did he know how it was going to be used? Let us know what you think...

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 06:49 PM on 19 Oct 2007,
  • Steve Cartmell wrote:

Mmmmm This is not very interesting,is there nothing else going on in the world or did someone forget something!

STUNT POLITICS

Party politics is, at best, amoral and often immoral. Hence a large lawyer contingent.
My MP (Con Newbury) thinks it will all be alright when the Tories gain power. He would say that wouldn鈥檛 he. I say it will be alright-ish when we elect local heroes, independent of party taint and 鈥渢ask鈥 them with managing the country without, hesitation, repetition, deviation or any other of the myriad PARTY political rag-bag of chicanery.

  • 3.
  • At 01:08 AM on 20 Oct 2007,
  • neil robertson wrote:

The key question is surely: did James Purnell authorise Jeremy
Hunt, the Tory Shadow Culture
Minister, to use his cardboard
cut-out at the Tory conference?

Or did Hunt just rip it off the
internet like the computer code
to set up Education UK with his
Hotcourses subsidiary company aka
Sheffield Data Services and British Council? I think we should be told!

Not least since the Education UK website traffic report score is a lot lower on the Alexa ranking than
that of a company in Norfolk run by two people and a dug who had to deal with British Council dirty dealing.

What too was the role of Virginia Bottomley in this affair? She was a
Trustee of British Council when Hunt struck his lucrative deal with this appalling Quango - he then inherited her parliamentary seat!

But to get back to Liberal Democrat drinking habits .... Michael Crick commented negatively on Newsnight tonight about the crate of bottled water on Chris Huhne's doorstep as your 主播大秀 camera crew turned up to quiz him on his green credentials.

But it was quite clear to impartial viewers that the crate in question was in fact Highland Spring water from The Ochils (a Labour marginal
that John Curtice predicted to go
SNP if Brown had called an election.

Now who, I wonder, would have sent a crate of Highland Spring to Huhne? I wonder if this came perchance from Charlie Kennedy as a tacit message
of support? Or was it Dame Elspeth Campbell trying to spike his drink?

I think we should be told. Anyway,
what is wrong with Highland Spring?
And what was it with Ming'socks? I missed the details of that story -
so judgement is suspended ... but I
think interest in sox is a plus for
a liberal electorate ... Indeed the
first thing I noticed about the late great Liberal leader Jo Grimond was that he always wore red socks long before the Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission Sir Chris Meyer sported them in Washington.

But to get back to drinking habits, and Grossman's report from Lisbon
that Broon refused to drink the champagne that was offered unlike Angela Merkel seen tippling in the background like a good daughter of the manse ..... It was perceptive of
Grossman to note that Brown does not seem to enjoy Europe in the same way as Tony Blair.... And if it had been Francois Mitterand at the reception, he would have probably asked for a small glass of Mateus Ros茅 instead
to charm his hosts and show that he
was prepared to put his Europeanism ahead of national self-interest too?

; and for Jeremy Hunt's company's Alexa ranking see:
which also has other useful background on British Council and related issues.

  • 4.
  • At 01:35 AM on 20 Oct 2007,
  • Roger Beaven wrote:

I doubt anyone will tell us, reliably, he knew it was going to be used in this way. They might tell us otherwise, but there will be no proof either way. I have a Mac computer, not a Microsoft PC, and in seconds can tell his image is at a higher resolution than the rest of the photo, indicating it is a manipulated image. It cannot tell me whether he knew about it or not.

We thought we knew "the camera never lies", but it CAN be made to pretend otherwise. I have no objection if the picture is qualified with "impression" or similar explanation, but if it looks like a photograph, but has been manipulated, then it must say so. Always. Is that simple, or so difficult? Do journalists have a right to mislead? I do not think so!

  • 5.
  • At 11:48 AM on 20 Oct 2007,
  • Sean wrote:

Ummmmmm; as has already been said, does it really matter?

It is quite obvious that the group picture has been 'doctored', as J.P.'s image does not have the same, light level, as the other figures, in the group.

Come on, let's have some real stories, and not, trashy, tittle- tattle

  • 6.
  • At 09:07 PM on 21 Oct 2007,
  • Bedd Gelert wrote:

I think Purnell's tacit admission that he had consented, but that he thought it would be made clear that he wasn't there at the time makes it impossible to argue that was completely innocent in this regard, and it makes his accusation that the NHS Trust were the guilty party a little disingenuous to say the least.

Now that you have the original photo, what about adding some friends for Purnell - he could do with some !

What about the Jackson Five ?

  • 7.
  • At 05:29 PM on 22 Oct 2007,
  • Harriet Hamster wrote:

James Purnell-
I have to observe :
That looks like a very dodgy Paul O'Grady and Michael Crick standing to his right...

  • 8.
  • At 05:30 PM on 22 Oct 2007,
  • Harriet Hamster wrote:

James Purnell-
I have to observe :
That looks like a very dodgy Paul O'Grady and Michael Crick standing to his right...

  • 9.
  • At 09:26 PM on 22 Oct 2007,
  • Harriet Hamster wrote:

James Purnell-
I have to observe :
That looks like a very dodgy Paul O'Grady and Michael Crick standing to his right...

  • 10.
  • At 11:02 PM on 24 Oct 2007,
  • Alex wrote:

Michael Moore has really shown how stupid and ignorant he is on this show tonight and i'm a raving lefty.

  • 11.
  • At 03:51 PM on 25 Oct 2007,
  • Steven Martin wrote:

That's funny, because if you try to use a Freedom of Information act on the 主播大秀, it just says that anything for journalistic purposes is excluded.

  • 12.
  • At 06:25 PM on 30 Oct 2007,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Dear Newsnight

How many 'doctored signatures' are out there on letters sent by those in authority,

do people not only pull the strings out of sight in the shadows but sign the letters as well?

best wishes
Bob

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