Screenshot from Truth Social

Authenticating a photograph

On Sunday, May 4, a day after the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his compound in Caracas, The New York Times published a short piece about their decision to publish, the day before, a photograph of the prisoner on board the U.S.S. Iwo Jima. The column was written by Meaghan Looram, director of photography at the Times, beneath the headline: “How The Times Assessed That Photo From Trump of Maduro in Handcuffs.” The subhead read: “Hours after President Trump announced that the United States had seized Nicolás Maduro, various photos that appeared to show the captured Venezuelan leader hit the internet.” The column is part of an occasional series, rubricked above the headline, “Times Insider.” (Another in the series appeared on Jan. 5, headlined: “Behind the Scenes of Our Nicolás Maduro Front Page.”)

Pair of photos published, Jan. 4 in The New York Times, said to be available from multiple, unidentified online sources.

Looram explained that in the hours after Maduro’s snatching, two photos appeared on multiple websites purporting to show the Venezuelan president in custody. The veracity of neither was certain, she wrote, and the Times has no foolproof way of determining if a photo is taken from life or is AI generated. Editors chose not to publish either, for reasons briefly outlined by Looram.

The first photograph shows Maduro seated and handcuffed in front. He’s surround by three, U.S. servicemen (two seated, one standing) wearing jungle camouflage, in what appears to be an aircraft. Timesanalysts, according to Looram, were suspicious of the two rows of windows, unknown in any aircraft they could identify. They might also have been put off by Maduro’s white suit. It’s a liqui liqui, considered the national, formal menswear in Venezuela and Colombia, consisting of a white, shirt-like jacket with Nehru-style rounded collar and matching trousers. Judging from published photographs, Maduro wears them sometimes but prefers an all-black version – he may feel it projects a tougher, more anti-imperialist look. I’d be surprised if the first thing he did when he when he heard U.S. troops blasting into his compound at 2:30 a.m. was change into a liqui liqui.

The second photo shows the Venezuelan president being escorted away from an airplane by two, DEA agents in desert camouflage. His hands this time are........

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