Misleading cover page of "The Economist"

The New York Times blog, Media Decoder, made a fuss about a recent front cover of The Economist. The June 19th issue features an altered image of Barack Obama. The original image, which features a man and a woman standing alongside Mr Obama, was shot by Reuters photographer Larry Downing.

Why is such photo editing ‘taboo’? Presumably because it defies the concept underlying photojournalism, that of the (near) truthful depiction of a real event through an eyewitness account. It should be a reliable testimonial. Altering a photograph using Photoshop, or via ‘creative’ cropping, is considered unethical in photojournalism. That is tampering with ‘evidence’.

The unaltered image, shot on May 28 by a Reuters photographer, Larry Downing, shows Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard and Charlotte Randolph, a local parish president, standing alongside the president. But in the image that appeared on The Economist’s cover, Admiral Allen and Ms. Randolph had been scrubbed out, replaced by the blue water of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was the ideal metaphor for a politically troubled president.This picture makes readers think in the way that the president is very concerned about BP problem and that he came to the beach just to think of the possible solution for this problem.

Often editors use their techniques to mislead us. Unfortunately we can see that in almost all media, such as magazines, advertisements, newspapers, etc.