Altered photo leads to probe

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The photographer has been suspended while the newspaper investigates other of his photos.

TOLEDO (AP) — A staff photographer for The Blade who digitally altered a front-page photo will be suspended until an investigation is completed, the newspaper said Friday.

Allan Detrich told Blade editors that he altered the photo of an Ohio college baseball team for his personal files and mistakenly sent it to the newspaper. He called it "a bad mistake on my part."

The Blade is in the process of reviewing Detrich's other photos published in the newspaper, said Blade spokeswoman Luann Sharp. Detrich began working for The Blade in 1989.

"We're looking to see if this is a one-time occurrence or if it has happened before," Sharp said. Detrich will be suspended with pay before returning to work Sunday after two days off, Sharp said.

The Associated Press has removed access to 50 images created by Detrich from AP's photo archive.

The AP last year removed images from its archive that were created by a Beirut-based freelance photographer who the Reuters news agency said manipulated two photos.

Photo in question

Detrich's photo of Bluffton University's baseball team showed players kneeling March 30 at their first game after a crash that killed five players in Atlanta. Photos of the team in other Ohio newspapers showed the legs of someone standing in the background. The legs did not appear in The Blade photo, taken from a similar angle.

Detrich was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature photography in 1998 for a series of photos of children who fled abusive parents.

The Blade, owned by Block Communications Inc., has a circulation of 135,000 on weekdays and 180,000 on Sundays.

Saturday, April 7, 2007