[THS] Fake bin Laden photo - World's media tricked

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

World's media tricked by fake bin Laden photo
May 2, 2011, New Zealand Herald (New Zealand's leading newspaper)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10723030

An image of Osama bin Laden after his death yesterday has been revealed as a fake.
The photo, which shows a bloodied bin Laden with a gun wound to the head, is the
photo-shopped combination of two images - one of the al Qaeda founder alive in
1998 and another of an unnamed corpse. The image has reportedly been circulating
for two years, but that did not stop the image being picked up by media across the
world in the wake of the terrorist's death. Britain's Daily Mail, Times of London,
Telegraph, Sun and Daily Mirror ... all used the image of their websites' front pages,
the Guardian reported, although they were quickly taken down. Associated Press had
placed the image on its wires, but soon retracted the photo as it could not verify its
authenticity. The picture appears to have first been published by the Middle East
online newspaper themedialine.org on April 29, 2009, although the site's editor then
said they could not ascertain whether it was genuine. A US official revealed the body
was photographed before being buried at sea, although no images have been
released by the Obama administration. It is not clear whether photos of bin Laden's
body will be released.

Note: How did this photo become accepted by the media? And why was bin Laden's
body buried at sea? Could it be that those involved did not want anyone to be able to
investigate whether the body was indeed that of bin Laden? For two BBC reports
suggesting that bin Laden may already have been dead, click here and here.