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North Korea not the only offender: 6 official photo fudgings

As state manipulators of the media go, few can compare to North Korea, which found it necessary to doctor an official photograph of Kim Jong-il's funeral procession. 

Just as governments are finding it easier to use technology to manipulate images, so too is the public finding it easier to spot such digital trickery. Here are six noteworthy attempts by governments to shape media coverage through image manipulation.

6. The granddaddy of state photoshops

Newseum
During Stalin's regime, the Soviets manipulated photographs for political reasons. Nikolai Yezhov, r., one-time chief of the Soviet secret police, was removed from this photo after he fell from Stalin's good graces.

  • By Arthur Bright Correspondent

But all the doctoring of photographs mentioned so far pale in comparison to the best known photo falsifier of them all: Josef Stalin.  Upon ascension to leadership of the Soviet Union, Stalin very quickly came into conflict with Leon Trotsky, a key figure in the Russian Revolution and a close friend of Vladimir Lenin.  Trotsky was deported and later assassinated at the orders of Stalin, but the Soviet dictator went even further, and had him removed from the new state's official history: including photographs. And Trotsky was just one of many to disappear from Stalin's version of Soviet history.

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