The Daily Mirror is in hot water over today's poster-style front page image showing a little girl crying to illustrate a campaign about poverty in Britain.
But the girl is not British. It was taken years ago. And is she weeping because she is poor. In fact, she is American, the daughter of a photographer, and was upset by an earthworm.
Does it matter that the photo is not really a starving child? Does it matter that the photo wasn't even taken in the UK?
Is there an ethical issue in buying a stock photo of a child not in poverty and using it to illustrate poverty?
Does it matter that the headline begins "Britain, 2014, but the photo is actually "USA, 2009?
"When it comes down to it, to seek to illustrate this story with a crying child was doomed to fail whichever route the Mirror took. It should have thought more carefully."
"It's a model-posed pic from Getty's library which we used for illustrative purposes. Imagine the stink if we'd used a pic of an actual child who had received food parcels."
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
But the girl is not British. It was taken years ago. And is she weeping because she is poor. In fact, she is American, the daughter of a photographer, and was upset by an earthworm.
Does it matter that the photo is not really a starving child? Does it matter that the photo wasn't even taken in the UK?
Is there an ethical issue in buying a stock photo of a child not in poverty and using it to illustrate poverty?
Does it matter that the headline begins "Britain, 2014, but the photo is actually "USA, 2009?
"When it comes down to it, to seek to illustrate this story with a crying child was doomed to fail whichever route the Mirror took. It should have thought more carefully."
"It's a model-posed pic from Getty's library which we used for illustrative purposes. Imagine the stink if we'd used a pic of an actual child who had received food parcels."
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.