Blogger Busts Chinese Propaganda Photo

It’s no wonder the Chinese government doesn’t really trust the Internet. It makes it a lot easier to call them out. Darn those democratic institutions! Chinese bloggers and forum members forced a photographer to admit he doctored a photo for the good of the State.

It’s not that there aren’t pregnant chiru antelope in Tibet, it’s just that they’re usually not pregnant in June.

And trains scare them.

So imagine the environmental head-scratching when a peaceful heard of pregnant chiru were pictured galloping along beneath train tracks as China’s $4 billion birthday present to itself, a “train to the roof of the world,” goes screaming by in the opposite direction.

It would take some pretty fine photography to clearly grab a speeding train going one way and chiru running the other way at a different speed.

Or it might take Photoshop, which the photographer was forced to admit. What’s really funny (and sad) is that this guy was a heckuva storyteller, relaying the exciting details of the moment he snapped 2006′s state-chosen photograph of the year.

The Chinese government liked it, you see, because the photo shut all those environmentalists who were concerned about the dwindling chiru population.

Before they could get their hoards of Internet regulators on the scene to stop the spread of the news that the picture was faked, bloggers had already told everybody.

Darn that free press!