An insidious kind of media manipulation

An illustration.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.

---

(Getty Images)

While combing through my archive of images to illustrate my ongoing series about Congo, I came across a photograph a colleague took when we were at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan in May 2013. About 150,000 Syrians were estimated to be temporarily living there at the time. I was working on a story about rape in the Syria conflict, although that day I ended up documenting the wedding of a 15-year-old girl taking place in the desert.

The photo shows me interviewing a refugee at the camp. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like…