A June 19th edition of The Economist had exactly the right type of visual that would undoubtedly capture the eyes of the readers, showing President Obama in a grief-stricken pose alone with oil rigs behind him after the oil spill.
As it turns out, the picture wasn’t telling the whole truth. The image was doctored and The New York Times eventually called the publication out for manipulating the photo.
The real photo showed Obama standing next to two people as he bent over to listen to them. The original photo also showed ground, not just solely the ocean. After cropping the photograph and using Photo Shop skills, the cover showed Obama alone in a much darker background.
The two photos aren’t entirely different; it’s not like they used Photo Shop to place a beer in Obama’s hand or anything of that nature. So, is there an issue here with the simple manipulations made to this image? Yes, there are substantial issues.
The Economist stated that they cropped a woman out of the photo without the intent of making a political impact, but rather to avoid confusion by having a woman the common public wouldn’t understand on the cover. Nice try, but that’s no way out of this jam.
There’s a very large danger in using digital image processing because it is essentially passing off a fake image as a real one to an unsuspecting audience. The code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists’ states that visuals must not misrepresent, and content must not be distorted. Image enhancement is acceptable, but anything beyond that is walking a thin line between entertainment and misleading its audience with deception.
In this case, The Economist certainly broke the SPJ’s code of ethics and misled its audience. Their doctored image made Obama to appear to be incredibly distressed and aside himself. Instead, he was just leaning over to listen to someone speak and was next to a group of people. This significantly altered the meaning and content of the image.
When it comes to visuals and such, it is important to remember that altering an image any further than just image enhancement could re-shape the photo’s image and deceive an audience. Therefore, if any significant photo altering does take place, it is important to label the image as a photo illustration.
A June 19th edition of The Economist had exactly the right type of visual that would undoubtedly capture the eyes of the readers, showing President Obama in a grief-stricken pose alone with oil rigs behind him after the oil spill.
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