[UPDATE BELOW] In the rush to report on Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, it's understandable that the media is going to make mistakes. Heck, this photo from the 2008 Chinese earthquake, which the Daily News included in a slideshow of 54 images from Haiti today, was probably tossed in by some hapless, unpaid photo intern. An intern who must be destroyed. Hat tip to the NY Post editor who altruistically pointed this out to us; judging by today's edition, we're surprised to see they're even paying attention to this. And speaking of fake Haiti earthquake photos, you also need to watch out for fake Haiti earthquake charities.
The Internet Storm Center reports that some people are already registering domain names related to the Haitian earthquake, in what might be the first step toward setting up a scam website. "Whenever there is a major natural disaster, be it home or abroad, there are two things you can count on. The first is the generosity of Americans to donate time and money to help victims, and the second is the appearance of poorly run and in some cases fraudulent charities," said Art Taylor of the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance. Their website has a guide on how to give without giving to a scam, and we listed some earlier (including some local fundraisers starting tonight).
UPDATE: Scott Cohen, Executive Editor of the Daily News, sent us this statement: "Three different photo agencies sent that image out last night labeled as a Jan. 12 shot from Haiti. Obviously, we removed it from our pages as soon as we learned of their error. As you wrote, it was one of dozens of photographs we posted overnight, while some of our so-called competitors were either sleeping or ignoring the story."
