Here is something kinda new. News.com is posting a series of pictures asking if they are fake.
It seems obvious that they are, as the article text seems to clearly say.
So, why did they post the article? Are they that hard up for news that they just publish photoshopped pictures these days? Isnt that setting a dangerous precedent?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22235665-2,00.html

WE received these photos in an email yesterday and perhaps you’ve seen them too.
The sequence apparently shows a woman sitting on the tracks at Sandgate station near Newcastle in NSW and then being hit by a train.
A NSW State Rail spokesman told NEWS.com.au he believed the pictures had been “Photoshopped

It is going in reverse. The blind on the train is a biig indicator- if this was real you’d be able to see the driver.

If it was real you’d probably see him leaning out the window screaming abuse actually. Especially in Newcastle.

Not Newcastle, NSW (ie, Australia)...

The sequence apparently shows a woman sitting on the tracks at Sandgate station near Newcastle in NSW and then being hit by a train.

Newcastle

I hadn’t read the article in its entirety before taking the images and overlapping them.  In the last two pictures, I lined up the train’s numbers at the front which aligned neatly the height of the man AND woman, however, are too small compared to the second of the last two images even though everything else is lined up.

I have no real doubt that the pictures are fake, especially the last one.
I’m just wondering why a newspaper would want to publish them? This isnt someones joke blog page or a Worth 1000 article - it’s meant to potentially be serious news.
Or perhaps this is it - this is the day that I realise that I might as well read blog pages, as they contain as much real world fact as professional journalists can provide.

Well, I suppose that they could be reporting on the fake pictures making the rounds.  So it’s a serious news article about something that’s fake.  Maybe.

Actually, Acci is right.  Hoaxes given to the media, especially those that are alarming to families (of the person(s) depicted) can cause real harm one way or the other.  If it’s a hoax then the perpetrators need to be harnessed in.  If it isn’t, then where’s the body?  Why wasn’t it reported?  Was it suicide, murder? etc. 

SO, anything given to the media or authorities has to be investigated whether or not they ‘think’ it’s a hoax.  To do otherwise would be negligence.  In this case, perhaps the photos were all they have to go on. 

I remember a very long time ago a young woman was taken to a hospital where she died within moments of arrival.  There were no identifying papers so she was simply a Jane Doe.  No one had reported her missing that the authorities could ascertain so before her body was released to the morticians, they opened her eyes enough an took photos that they hoped someone, somewhere might be able to identify. 

The photos had to be released to a wider media berth in order to hopefully reach family across the nation.  I remember thinking how very beautiful this young lady had been.  It was heart rending. 

For as morbid, or unconventional the method had been, it had also been the best chance they had.

Actually I think Acci means that the purpose of showing them in the paper isn’t to ask “Does anyone know if this is real and this girl really did this?” but to say “Look, if you get shown these pictures, they’re fake. Don’t lose sleep over them.”

There’s plenty of incidents where faked photos have caused serious trouble if not mass hysteria so debunking them is a good job.

In the last pic the womans bosy looks really out of place. Like it doesnt belong in the photo. I have no doubt that it is fake. Plus, wouldnt there be blood if she was hit by a train?