This goes deeper than people realize.

I totally agree.

For me the use of cherry picked photos like that is a big red flag about the absence of Journalistic integrity of that publication and that shit (as well as a lot of other slimy Propaganda techniques) is all over the place, especially (but not only) in the Press in Anglo-Saxon countries.

I follow the Principle that people should be judged by their actions, and Principles apply to everybody indepently of their political color, so I abhor misportraying of a situation by people closer to me politically just as much as I abhor it when done by people far from me politically - if you put your principles aside for some political colors but not others, then they're not really principled and instead you just have principle-sounding slogans you use in politics.

And to address your first part, I do analyse any shocking pictures in the same way and with the same skepticism (the bigger the claim the bigger the proof required) - for many it's not hard to figure out alternative explanations which have a high probability. You can tell if it's a true skeptical analysis like I try to do or just denialism like many people do for political ends by 2 things:

• Do they do it always to "protect" one political side but never a different political one?
• Do they use low probability possibilities to dismiss high probability ones? For example, claiming that Musk was doing a "from my heart to you" movement rather than a "NAZI salute" when he did his salute, TWICE, in the Republican party conference - in terms of probability based on context, his past comments and even the details of the salute, the "NAZI salute" was a much higher probability explanation than any other explanations put forward by people who seemed more driven by liking him than anything else.