Читать книгу Visual Communication - Janis Teruggi Page - Страница 44

During the 2008 US presidential election, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story on vice presidential candidate Sara Palin featuring a closely cropped photo and following its longstanding policy of not retouching photos (Baird, 2016). The photo caused an uproar because critics said it was cruel, revealing wrinkles and some facial hair. Photographers for Newsweek said they had set up for a male candidate, not a female candidate thus using stronger, and some would say harsher, lighting for the shoot. The managing editor commented that Newsweek used unretouched photos of men on a regular basis. As Baird (2016) wrote, “Newsweek was accused of sexism because we did not (original emphasis) airbrush the photo. The truth was, we'd portrayed Ms. Palin just the way we did male candidates.” This incident points out how expectations of women's appearances are far different from men's, and people apply different and gender‐based ethical judgments.

Figure 2.3 Intentionally cropped photo of President Trump’s 2017 inauguration day photo.

Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images News/Getty Images.

Nearly a decade later, President Trump instructed the National Park Service to remove empty space and make the audience look larger in his 2017 inauguration day photo posted to social media (Figure 2.3). A government photographer admitted to investigators that he intentionally cropped photos to fit the statement of Trump's then‐press secretary Sean Spicer, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period” (CNN, 2018).