The Economist Alteration of Obama Photo: Unethical?

This is it.

The photo isn't that good, unless crop it in tight on Obama. Forget that he's looking at anything, if you take it out of the picture he is sorrowful and regretful. Changing the photo makes a political statement, even if it wasn't your intention. As an editor, you have to be aware of that.

It's a great cover. The best an editor could dream up. Which is exactly what happened in this case.

 

either way its unethical, particularly involving a changing political story and the president. It alters the meaning of Obama's pose. Perhaps he's leaning down to hear what she's saying. Removing context changes the meaning.
Its what pisses me off about photoshop. If you can't get the shot you want, just create it. In the "old days" photogs took tons of pics from tons of angles and if even then they didn't get the shot, you lived with what you had.
Anything else is plain dishonest

 

In that case yes I do have a problem altering it. That, to me, is them altering the photo to make some type of statement. Otherwise there's no need to crop her out.

 

I don't know if it's unethical, but it's dishonest.

Editorially, the cropping completely changes the mood of the image. Instead of standing with a couple of people, meeting and talking and interacting, the cropped photo portrays solitude and despair, a president alone with his intense thoughts. Not at all what was happening at that moment.

Dishonest. Which I suppose makes it unethical.

 

I was going to ask what's the difference?

 

I think it's more lazy than unethical. Sure, Obama wasn't doing some major reflection in this shot, but I'm sure he's had moments in the past few weeks where he has done some serious, lonely reflection (at least I hope there has been), and that's what the cover and the cover story are getting after.

If they put an illustration note somewhere, then I don't think there's much unethical. But they should have worked harder to get a legitimate shot that has Obama actually reflecting rather than tweaking one. I'm sure there's one out there or they could have asked someone there ahead of time to look out for a good moment to get a photo like that. It's a fine line between being lazy and unethical, but I think this one was just more on the lazy side.

 

Yeah, definitely smacks of laziness more than anything. Obama looks to be in thought - either within his own mind or gathering what the other people with him are saying and processing that - so I don't think the edit really changes anything.

But you're telling me THIS is the best photo you could come up with for your cover story? Pretty weak.

 

One time I saw this photo of Douglas MacArthur wading ashore on a beach somewhere. There were a whole bunch of guys in olive-green uniforms with him. It always confused the heck out of me. I mean, who were these folks?

Eventually, I figured out that General MacArthur was on vacation and that these men were park rangers. Problem solved.

 

What if they ran a shot that cut the woman out of the picture via cropping rather than via photoshop?

 

Yeah, what a shitty photo to have to edit to put on a front page. Get better photogs.

 

Technically, the crop would be ethical for a magazine cover, though it wouldn't represent what was actually going on in the photo. If you pair it with some solid reporting that backs up what The Economist was trying to display on the cover -- and for the sake of transparency, run a clear cutline inside -- then it's doable. I would not crop it for spot news.

The hypothetical crop (not really possible with this photo for a mag cover) is better than The Economist's 'shop job in many ways, the foremost being that a crop leaves information out while the cover in question replaces accurate information with false information.