It looks like competition among the news media isn’t completely dead these days—even though erasing a microphone logo is a pretty obvious slight.

Poynter.org is reporting that the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette was forced to apologize this morning after one of its photographers digitally altered a front-page news photo to obscure the logo of a TV station.

“A Gazette photographer went outside the boundaries of our standards when he obscured the name of a television station on a microphone in today’s front-page photo,” noted the paper on its Facebook page. “Other than the photographer, no one at the Gazette was aware of what had taken place with the photo.

“Our photographers know that it is unacceptable to alter reality in news photos. The photographer believed his action helped direct the focus of the photo to the subject. He was wrong to do so. This is a singular incident. Disciplinary action will be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

According to Poynter, the apology seemed to be buried: ”The story itself on the website shows the correct photo but contains no mention of the error, nor is an apology visible on the homepage.”

In the old days of Journalism many media outlets had strict rules about ever mentioning the competition. That is no longer the case at many places.