Caution: Un-vetted press releases and press release photos may be hazardous to media's credibility. Here isoriginal [doctored] press release photo that the New York Times wrongly published as an authentic "coal cliff."

The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin writes,

“We’ve pulled the photograph of a cliff of coal that was provided by Peabody Energy to accompany a Times business-section story in March on rising coal exports and which I used to illustrate this post on Peabody’s response to criticisms of coal companies by James Hansen of NASA.

“If the [NY TIMES] editors had known the photo was doctored, they never would have published it (nor would I). Yet more evidence of the benefits of the constant peer review provided on the Web. A tip of hat to the blogger  [The Black Butterfly Effect]  who first noticed the photo stitchery and to the comment contributor and folks at Realclimate.org who alerted me.”

Read more here.