Morgantown, WV, Dominion Post's extreme photo alteration

Two things:
1) The average reader has no idea "photo illustration" is newspaper jargon for "we changed the photo so much that what you see is completely different from what actually happened."

2) The policy itself is idiotic.

So let me get this straight: If I'm an incumbent, I can't be in a photo, but if I'm a first-time office-seeker, I'm good to go? Looks as if whoever the Republican presidential nominee is in 2012 is going to get a lot of photo time from the debates since, per the policy, Obama can't be shown.

 

Why do they think the governor invited the parents to the signing and took that cheesy photo to begin with? For the historical record? Of course not. So he can show people what a good job he's doing. (Or if he's term-limited, what a good job his party is doing.)

 

Are the readers aware of -- more importantly, accepting of -- the paper's policy?

 

This. Speaking in special newspaper code does not absolve you of the responsibility not to mislead the reader, and that's what that photo did.

My readers have probably figured out that my byline is a special code for "I phoned this in and you won't want to read it but it does have your nephew's name in the box score," but that took years of training.

 

Sorry about being late to the party - it's been busy at work (which is a good thing).

That said, the doctored photo NEVER should have run. At all. It is not a true representation of what happened.

We have a policy about not running grip and grin photos of politicians who are running for office. Once they've declared, that's it. We tell our photographers, and they do a good job of policing it. It's not hard.

 

In this day of cutbacks and people doing more in less time, I'm shocked that a paper had the staff to dedicate a person to spend the time to doctor a submitted grip-and-grin photo as it was. Slow news day?

Seriously, though, you just don't alter photos. I don't mind seeing intrusive elements created by the camera altered out like flash spots, red eye, etc. but if something, and more importantly, someone is in a shot, leave them in or alter things so drastically it's obvious it's an illustration.

This is plain deception, which is unacceptable on any grounds, and I don't think their policy is strong enough as a reason to pull people out even when staging photos, even if they're as boring as this one.

 

What a lame-ass grip-&-grin photo to begin with. The editor who sent the photog to this event should be in front of the photoshopper in the firing chain.

Geez Louise, if you HAVE to have art with the story, at least crop some headshots out of it and stay consistent.

 

They didn't staff it. It was the state's photog.

Still, the editor's ass should be kicked to the curb right-f*cking-now.

 

It's a dumb photo.

Twenty years ago, this couldn't have been done -- and in this case, that's a good thing. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

It's a dumb policy. If balance is important, fine, balance the photos you run, but don't have a policy where none can run, and certainly don't do something like this.

Ditto to all those who say a lot of people never saw the agate type saying it was a photo illustration.

They're defending this, but there's no defense for it.

 

Amen to all of this. Obviously, you don't doctor photos, just like you don't make up quotes. Report the news, don't create it.

But one other point: they not only made the wrong decision, they did it badly. The curtains behind the signing ceremony have a bad ripple in them from where the re-elect-me politicians were removed.

All that effort for a grip and grin? Yikes. Go out and shoot a stand-alone photo for the page instead.

 

Why not use headshots? Not the best idea, but could've worked.

 

So does the paper's policy mean that no pictures of Obama will be published during the election season of 2012? Or of the West Virginia governor when he runs for re-election? I guess they're hoping that neither does anything newsworthy during those stretches of time.