Marylaine Block in her Neat New Stuff I found this Week featured this as one of her websites. Another one from C/Net. It's always great fun to see how photos have been altered for and by the media. Who wouldn't want to look 20 lbs lighter? But this "Pictures that Lie" website is also a lesson in skepticism. If you can't trust your eyes--their eyes--who and what can you trust. There seem to be fewer and fewer honest and objective sources of information in the tech-heavy news universe.
On the other hand what does it mean to be honest and objective. Don't writers always use and manipulate words to gain the effect they desire. And how often is it that effect is not informed by unacknowledged bias. Oops, a little too twisty. I am an avid follower of the Poynter's Institute's "Writing Tools" series by Roy Peter Clark. Every week he discusses a technique journalists can use to, in effect, manipulate the reader's response. Of course I don't use any manipulation. I just like reading about it--a lot. js
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