Mexican politician Javier Lozano accused La Jornada newspaper of photo fakery. (Credit: Twitter)

Mexican newspaper La Jornada has defended itself against charges of photo fakery for its photo of a political meeting, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas reported earlier this month.

La Jornada is a Mexico City-based Spanish-language daily newspaper, according to Mondo Times. The newspaper states that it has 224,958 print readers.

According to the Knight Center, Mexico’s Labor Secretary Javier Lozano claims the newspaper’s Sept. 2 photo of the “Fifth Presidential Report” is a phony because the photo never happened.   The photo pictures Lozano, Rodrigo Medina, Marcelo Ebrard, Ernesto Cordero and Enrique Peña Nieto.

The Knight Center notes that “None of the others photographed have questioned the veracity of the photo.”

Lozano’s accusations were made in a Tweet, according to the Knight Center.

In a Sept. 3 tweet he wrote, according to a Google Translate “This is the farce of @ LaJornada of a meeting that never happened. We even waved to EPN. http://yfrog.com/kll21yc.”

La Jornada published a letter from Lozano about the accusations Sept. 5 calling it against a photo montage.  In response, the newspaper called on Lozano to “urgently visit your eye doctor and his psychiatrist.”

He responded Sept. 5 to those calls stating, again according to Google Translate: “Today @ LaJornada refers me to an ophthalmologist and a psychiatrist (go tolerance). Well they could use a code of ethics http://yfrog.com/kekyooaj”

Lozano also tweeted Sept. 6 that  “Here goes the comparative photos with the supposed want of @ LaJornada demonstrate that there is no trick http://yfrog.com/kh2heljj”

He reiterated his accusations on Twitter including in a Sept. 10 tweet (see here) that describes La Jornada’s picture as a “front-page photo montage of a meeting that never happened.”

iMediaEthics has written to La Jornada for further comment and will update with any response.