Altering news photos (again)

[Warren Toda]

If you're playing along at home, you probably noticed that today's Globe and Mail (and apparently also The Washington Post) included a magazine which had an altered news photo on its front cover:

The magazine was labelled as being a "paid insert." I guess this means the newspaper can wash its hands of it by saying that the magazine is like an advertisement and the paper isn't responsible for the magazine's content. Remember when newspapers refused advertisements that didn't meet their standards?

The magazine was distributed one day before Trump's presidential inauguration.

The magazine's cover photo is clearly of a US presidential inauguration. Except, as you may have noticed, the media riser and a few other things have been removed, a dark ominous sky has been added and Obama's body has been replaced by one that appears to be Trump.

The original photo from Obama's 2013 inauguration is here.

The magazine cover has been nicely photoshopped but it has an obvious cloning error next to the president's head, you can see some duplicated clumps of people and there are some blending issues with the sky.

Do these alterations violate Getty's image licence agreement with respect to "3c. No Alteration of Editorial Content"?

Many magazines use photo illustrations on their covers. But many of these illustrations are clearly obvious that they're not real photos. In cases where it's not obvious, most magazines will run a disclaimer stating that the picture is a (photo) illustration - a term that I bet most folks don't understand but that's another story.

This magazine is not from a novice publisher. The only reason why a publication would run a manipulated news photo and purposely not disclose that fact is to intentionally mislead its readers.

The magazine is a Canadian publication from publisher Corporate Knights which "has a strict policy regarding the separation of advertising and editorial." Too bad it doesn't have a policy with regard to altering news photos and misleading its readers.

It's now impossible to know how many other photos in the magazine may have been altered. If you manipulate news photos, are you also manipulating quotes and other facts?

It takes a long time to build credibility and earn trust. It takes mere moments to lose it all.

[Stacey Newman]

You make very important points Warren and I agree.

I'm certainly not making light of the principles you've highlighted; but I have to say that it wouldn't surprise me if Trump stole this image as proof of his 1.5 M inauguration attendees. In this vein, living in a time when the POTUS can lie, seemingly without consequence, adherence to fact and the principles of fair and just coverage is even more important.