US paper fires photographer for manipulating pictures of herons

A Californian newspaper has fired one of its veteran award-winning photographers for three cases of manipulating his pictures. The Sacramento Bee told readers on Saturday that it had sacked Bryan Patrick the day before for "violating the paper's ethics policy."

A reader raised questions about Patrick's published photo of a great egret catching a frog, with a snowy egret reaching to grab it. It transpired that the picture of the herons was a composite of two images.


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So the Bee's executives then reviewed more of Patrick's previous photos and found two that had been altered, including one of a wildfire with "exagggerated" flames. The paper told readers: "To maintain the credibility of the Sacramento Bee, documentary photographs will not be manipulated in any way that alters the reality of the image."

Sean Elliot, president of the US National Press Photographers Association, described the changes to Patrick's pictures as "violating a fundamental code of ethics in the name of something relatively minor." He said: "If he's willing to move a couple of egrets around, if he's willing to jazz up flames to make a photo more exciting, how do we know there aren't more?... How do we trust the work?"