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It's easy to understand how that can happen. The imaging department of four people handles 300 to 400 pictures a day -- not all of which are published -- and, especially on deadline at night, things get hectic.

There is supposed to be a quality control system behind the photographers and image techs to make sure those errors don't happen. Robert Miller, The N&O's director of photography, says every image is reviewed by a photo editor, as well as page designers and copy editors.

In fact, one of the N&O photo editors noticed the doctored Charlotte Observer photograph when it was transmitted over a photo wire, even before The Observer published the picture and the apology. The N&O didn't run the picture. "If that had been our own, we would have had a conversation with the photographer" before publishing, Miller said. "Sometimes, people can go overboard because they get carried away with the art of the image and not the content. So you have an editor to prevent it from happening."

The N&O, like most papers, has a written photo policy to guide its photojournalists and other news staff. It says, in part, "We do not manipulate photographs. The only electronic adjustment that should be made to news photographs is to improve the reproduction of the image so it more closely matches the color and lighting of the actual situation." The policy also forbids staging of photos or setting up situations for a photographer.

In the case of Tiger's cap, the problem was an issue of quality control, not journalistic integrity. But it does show how easy it is to adjust reality to the point that readers notice. The result was that the photo was wrong, just as misspellings or incorrect names can make a story wrong. In fact, the effect on credibility can be greater with photos than stories, because pictures have such an impact on readers.

"We want to shoot reality, not what we might want to see," Miller said. "We know that readers give us a lot of trust. They trust that we show reality, and that's what's most important to us."

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