Ilta-Sanomat reveals embarrassing error in Reuters feed on Russian North Pole sub expedition
Finnish-built submersibles caused Cold War storm in 1987
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Images presented by the Reuters news agency last Thursday, purporting to show the Finnish-built MIR-1 and MIR-2 submersibles during a recent Russian scientific expedition to the sea bed 4.3 kilometres below the Geographic North Pole, have been shown to be something else again.
The pictures did indeed show MIR-1 and MIR-2 in action, but the submersibles were actually employed at the time in location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic, and not under the polar ice-cap.
Those who have seen James Cameron's blockbuster movie Titanic (1997) will also have recognised the footage, as Cameron used the same shots in certain sequences of his epic about the 1912 disaster that were set in modern times.
The images were picked up by numerous media outlets around the world, Helsingin Sanomat among them, and were inserted into news stories as evidence of the successful expedition. Nobody raised any eyebrows.
At least, not until one Finnish reader, a 13-year-old boy from Kemi named Waltteri Seretin, made just this "Cameron connection", and contacted the late-edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat. The newspaper ran the story prominently in its Thursday edition.
The footage used by Reuters was supplied by the Russian television channel RTR, and apparently no claim was made in the original Russian news bulletin to suggest the pictures showed the two manned mini-subs beneath the North Pole. Indeed at the time of the original broadcast, the vessels and their crews were known to be still some hours away from their destination. However, a viewer could conceivably assume that the computer animations, the footage of ships on the surface at the North Pole, and the underwater scenes were all part of the same continuum. In its piece on the subject, two of the four Reuters pictures were from the Titanic filming.
Reuters later apologised for the error and made the appropriate changes to its video material on the expedition, with captions denoting the various origins of the file footage used.
As the story of the faux pictures broke and spread to other countries, there were those who jumped to the hasty conclusion that in fact the entire Russian Academy of Sciences' expedition was a hoax. It was even thought briefly that the planting of a titanium Russian flag on the sea-bed - seen as a symbolic claim on the area, which is rich in natural resources - was the product of clever image manipulation.
Things are probably not that dramatic: it merely seems that someone at the normally meticulous news agency arrived at a wrong conclusion of their own about the images and they were mislabelled or left without any captions at all.
The incident is doubly embarrassing for Reuters since it follows on from a case last August in which the news agency published an image by a freelancer of Israeli bombings in Lebanon that had been dramatised using photo manipulation, with the addition of smoke rising from allegedly burning buildings. After that gaffe, Reuters promised to tighten up its controls on material being put out in its name.
The MIR-1 and MIR-2 submersibles, which were delivered to the then Soviet Academy of Sciences in late 1987, were built by the Oceanics subsidiary of the Finnish forest, metals, and shipbuilding concern Rauma-Repola.
Made of specially hardened steel and weighing 18 tons, and capable of diving to 6,000 metres, the mini-subs were a hugely impressive accomplishment. Only three other submarines were equipped to work at such extreme depths, which allowed access to 98% of the world's oceans.
The sale caused some political shockwaves at the time, as The Pentagon and the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) did not look kindly on the export of such high technology items behind the Iron Curtain, fearing the submersibles could have a strategic application.
After it became clear that the devices would actually work, considerable pressure was brought to bear on President Mauno Koivisto by his US counterpart George Herbert Walker Bush and others, but the project went through as planned.
Rauma-Repola, which had much to lose in its offshore oil-platform business if hit by sanctions, quietly backed away from further work on submarines and the Oceanics subsidiary was wound up. The Rauma-Repola CEO at the time Tauno Matomäki later commented in an interview that the decision had been prompted by pressure from Washington and the CIA.
The pictures did indeed show MIR-1 and MIR-2 in action, but the submersibles were actually employed at the time in location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic, and not under the polar ice-cap.
Those who have seen James Cameron's blockbuster movie Titanic (1997) will also have recognised the footage, as Cameron used the same shots in certain sequences of his epic about the 1912 disaster that were set in modern times.
The images were picked up by numerous media outlets around the world, Helsingin Sanomat among them, and were inserted into news stories as evidence of the successful expedition. Nobody raised any eyebrows.
At least, not until one Finnish reader, a 13-year-old boy from Kemi named Waltteri Seretin, made just this "Cameron connection", and contacted the late-edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat. The newspaper ran the story prominently in its Thursday edition.
The footage used by Reuters was supplied by the Russian television channel RTR, and apparently no claim was made in the original Russian news bulletin to suggest the pictures showed the two manned mini-subs beneath the North Pole. Indeed at the time of the original broadcast, the vessels and their crews were known to be still some hours away from their destination. However, a viewer could conceivably assume that the computer animations, the footage of ships on the surface at the North Pole, and the underwater scenes were all part of the same continuum. In its piece on the subject, two of the four Reuters pictures were from the Titanic filming.
Reuters later apologised for the error and made the appropriate changes to its video material on the expedition, with captions denoting the various origins of the file footage used.
As the story of the faux pictures broke and spread to other countries, there were those who jumped to the hasty conclusion that in fact the entire Russian Academy of Sciences' expedition was a hoax. It was even thought briefly that the planting of a titanium Russian flag on the sea-bed - seen as a symbolic claim on the area, which is rich in natural resources - was the product of clever image manipulation.
Things are probably not that dramatic: it merely seems that someone at the normally meticulous news agency arrived at a wrong conclusion of their own about the images and they were mislabelled or left without any captions at all.
The incident is doubly embarrassing for Reuters since it follows on from a case last August in which the news agency published an image by a freelancer of Israeli bombings in Lebanon that had been dramatised using photo manipulation, with the addition of smoke rising from allegedly burning buildings. After that gaffe, Reuters promised to tighten up its controls on material being put out in its name.
The MIR-1 and MIR-2 submersibles, which were delivered to the then Soviet Academy of Sciences in late 1987, were built by the Oceanics subsidiary of the Finnish forest, metals, and shipbuilding concern Rauma-Repola.
Made of specially hardened steel and weighing 18 tons, and capable of diving to 6,000 metres, the mini-subs were a hugely impressive accomplishment. Only three other submarines were equipped to work at such extreme depths, which allowed access to 98% of the world's oceans.
The sale caused some political shockwaves at the time, as The Pentagon and the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) did not look kindly on the export of such high technology items behind the Iron Curtain, fearing the submersibles could have a strategic application.
After it became clear that the devices would actually work, considerable pressure was brought to bear on President Mauno Koivisto by his US counterpart George Herbert Walker Bush and others, but the project went through as planned.
Rauma-Repola, which had much to lose in its offshore oil-platform business if hit by sanctions, quietly backed away from further work on submarines and the Oceanics subsidiary was wound up. The Rauma-Repola CEO at the time Tauno Matomäki later commented in an interview that the decision had been prompted by pressure from Washington and the CIA.
Helsingin Sanomat