CBC: Hues Of The News, Update

(bumped with Update #2)
CBC;

We made a mistake.
The photo shows smoke billowing from stacks at the old Lakeview coal-fired generating plant in Mississauga, once said to be the world’s largest. The Ontario government called it a heavy polluter when it was shut down a couple of years ago not only because of the quantities of greenhouse gases it produced – difficult to photograph – but because of the noxious fumes and particulates that contributed to the murk obscuring downtown Toronto seen in the photo.
The stacks were demolished a few months ago but it remains a powerful image of the kind of emissions the Kyoto Accord wants to limit and that is why we used it in the April 19 story on John Baird’s concerns about the “risks” of meeting Kyoto.

(Did you catch the scare quotes on the word “risks”?)

It was the right photo, but not the right version.
CBC.ca uses images in number of ways: It is our policy not to alter those accompanying news stories and depicting actual events or people. Those used as graphics in promos or to illustrate feature stories, columns or the like may be changed in minor ways – slightly heightened contrast, different colour filter, slight cropping – to enhance their visual impact and appeal.
In this case, the original image was treated with a “warming filter,” which gave it the sepia tone, and cropped slightly to use as a graphic image. Fair enough, except it was – mistakenly – dropped in a file accessible for use with news stories and subsequently posted with the Baird story.
It was an inadvertent error, but I should also point out that the “dramatically different” versions the blogger found are, in fact, exactly the same photograph both showing exactly the same thing – emissions from an acknowledged heavy polluter. There was no “misrepresentation” and no attempt to mislead.

That’s the copy from the main page at Insidethecbc.com. Inexplicably, clicking on the permalink and comments brings up a blank page. (Note: This one works.)
Well, who to believe? The CBC or my own lyin’ eyes?
Of course they’re the “same photograph”. That was the rather the point – the question was why the photo was run through such a “warming filter” in the first place. I know what it took for me to run the original through the GIMP to approximate the change. This was (quite obviously) no mere bump in contrast.
And if the CBC felt that “warming” the photo was an acceptable alteration, then my question is this – was the blue-toned version that has appeared at least 3 times on their website just a different, enhanced version of the original?
Original post here.

Tod Maffin at Inside the CBC – “I know CBC.ca executives are discussing this particular issue today. I expect to hear from them soon about it.”