Finger Pointing And Photo Cropping
October 3, 2008 at 11:12 am
Here’s the Palin/Biden debate picture featured top of the Washington Post front page this morning…
And here’s how the photo looks right now on the Post website …
Any guesses why they’d look different
UPDATE: Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell:
Readers were right to complain that Friday’s Page 1 photo of Biden seeming to point aggressively at Palin did not reflect the tenor and civility of the debate.
Charlie (Colorado) said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
None. I’m convinced that the Washington Post has no ulterior motive whatsoever in replacing a picture of Palin standing up to Biden, with him somewhat aggressively poking a finger at her, with a picture of him putting a protective hand on the shoulder of a seven year old, while leaving it headed with some variant of “Palin meets Biden in VP Debate”.
On another topic, doesn’t it look like Piper might bite that hand any moment?
Blue Falcon said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Where’s Biden’s wedding ring? That is his left hand right?
John Steele said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
What possible function could THAT cropping serve — someone not paying attention?
bgates said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
Falcon - I don’t know, but I bet that by now Andrew Sullivan has hypothesized Piper stole it.
J Richardson said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
He probably just forgot to put the wedding ring on after doing all that home electrical work with the wire and light switches he got at Home Depot.
Mike said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
He’s asking the typical question from someone on the left, “are those real?”.
Brian G. said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Karl Rove cropped out the wedding ring.
Rod said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
He’s looking down Palin’s blouse?
dave said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Maybe somebody at the WaPo thinks it will make Biden the protector of the little girl while her own mother grabs her chest….
whatever, they couldn’t afford to show Biden poking his finger at the nice pretty lady. Slow Joe becomes Ugly Joe.
David said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Piper would probably like to lick her palm and smooth out Joe’s plugged hair.
tastid212 said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
the cropped photo pretty much gets rid of the turkey wattles, too.
Mateo said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
I’m a graphic designer, and I think this is probably just a missed step in the web production process. The photo was pasted in but not resized. I’m a McCain/Palin supporter, and no fan of the Post, but I don’t think there’s any ulterior motive here. Piper sure is a cute kid, though.
AndyJ said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
The close-up focuses on the face of the child. The distnt photo shows a man talking -DOWN- to a woman and trying to “put her in her place”…. WaPo and NYTimes have made no secret of their disdain for one of the lower classes assuming she has the ability to enter the Upper Class of Politician and Intellectual Masters. Palin has “jumped up” beyond her station. She must be “put back down” lest Washington be over run with others who dare to believe they have a place in the ruling class.
Palin cannot be allowed to succeed on this path. She is not of the Washington Class… Yes, Class Warfare and Class Consciousness is alive and well in America. Being solidly “One of us” means she cannot be “one of them”. Palin’s popularity threatens the Ruling Class more than her arrival as One-Of-Many members of Congress. She may wll become a President. That would never do.
The changed photo is a “cute” photo and not likely to raise the ire and backlash of the Great
Soccer-Hockey-Softball Moms of the country…
.
Xixi said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
I cancelled my subscription to the WaPo a few years ago when my beloved and now deceased pet cockatiel, Nick, peace be upon him, refused to have it in the bottom of his cage.
Bilwick said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
Because Michael Moore is in it?
elHombre said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
In the firt, Palin shows up as the caring mom making sure that Piper is not disturbed by the onslaught of the arrogant gasbag. In the second, she is an anonymous hand and the gasbag is the comforter.
Richard Blaine said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
He’s standing much to closely to that child’s backside for comfort. Bad touching.
paul a'barge said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
I’m with Mateo .. When can Piper run for President?
I’d like to be there when she spits into her hand and then smears it all over the head of Achmadinijead (sp?).
Bilwick said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
Caption:: “Mommy, this man has a gun, too–in his pocket!”
tim maguire said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
I think Mateo is probably right–they just forgot to resize the photo for the web page.
mrkwong said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Re the ring - Piper’s no dummy. Is gold still pushing $900?
Don't Vote said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
You folks need a hobby. Gee, why would a paper make the cute kid the focus, rather than two shitbag politicians? Conspiracy!
Palmetto Patriot said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Looks like it’s been stretched vertically as well. Piper’s face is longer and thinner in the lower picture.
Annoying Old Guy said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
No, it wasn’t a resizing issue. Look at Palin’s right hand on Piper. Note that in the first picture, her fingers are cropped. Those fingers are not cropped in the second. A messed up resizing can’t *create* new parts of the image. Clearly, both are independent crops from the original.
P.S. Just look at the quality of image on Piper’s face on the two. The first one looks like a bad resize, the second a full crop with some noise removal.
anonymous said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
> The distnt photo shows a man talking -DOWN- to a woman
> and trying to “put her in her place”….
Women, know your limits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU
Chris said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
It could be an issue with the publishing of the picture, but… Normally in a situation like that the portion of the photo that would be visible is the top left corner not the bottom right.
Brown Line said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
OK, I’m as paranoid as the next guy … but that Piper is a really cute kid, and if I were a web designer, I’d much rather show her picture than two politicians. It’s not as if we don’t know what they look like. IMHO, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
As for the wedding ring, maybe he doesn’t wear one. My wife and I don’t, and we just celebrated our 30th anniversary.
SteveM said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
This was NOT inadvertent.
Someone has put a border around the ‘crop’. That would’ve required an extra step. A chop/resize wouldn’t have done it automatically.
Richard W said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
Nope. Just a bad crop. If they we’re to have some other motive, I could see several crops a whole lot better than this one. Just poor workmanship.
Bryan C said,
October 3, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
As a web developer, I suspect Mateo’s right. Both versions are cropped from an original photo, the print version deliberately and the web version accidentally. The cropping itself (along with adding a border) is probably done automatically behind the scenes when the images are selected from their photo library (if you fiddle with the last number of the image’s filename you’ll see some other variations). Also, the aspect ratio of the images is the same, which suggests to me that the two images were intended to match up. The web crop really doesn’t make much sense from a photographic POV (Biden’s fingertip is amputated), and if they wanted to change the tone, why not just select a different image entirely?
Jamie said,
October 3, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
It could be accidental. But what a strange coincidence that the positive consequences of all the accidents tend to redound to the Democratic ticket. Sure, this is a clumsy crop, but what is its effect? It removes Palin - by far the more attractive of the candidates - from the picture. It removes the least attractive part of Biden from the picture. It removes the impression that Biden is touching Piper with less than Palin’s full blessing. It focuses on a fatherly hand on the shoulder of a pretty child, and, I assume, identifies the fatherly hand as Biden’s (and the pretty child as Palin’s, with - I s’pose - some implication of collegiality or bipartisanship or some such junk). So - accident or not, who benefits?
Not Palin. And it’s not neutral for Biden.
annas said,
October 3, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
Here’s a John Balushi quote from Blues Brothers? Or some other movie,
“How much for the little girl?”
Margaret said,
October 3, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
Did you notice how he laid hands on that young girl while discussing coal plants in China on the rope line? A few years ago this could have gotten a man in trouble.
adk46er said,
October 3, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Are you people who claim this is just the result of cropping serious? When was the last time any newspaper or magazine published a picture of a person minus their head. I don’t think its the least bit strange to suggest that a picture of a man pointing his finger at a woman might not play well with females and that the Post knew that… It wasn’t that long ago (2000 NY senate race) that Hillary got lots of mileage out of the fact that her opponent violated her personal space.
B said,
October 3, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
Get the comment security code wrong, system eats your comment.
How user-friendly of you.
John in Carolina said,
October 3, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
Great catch.
I built on it.
WaPo’s now gone from cropping to what its Style Section would call a complete makeover.
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2008/10/wapos-biden-cropping-and-makeover.html
John in Carolina
sbw said,
October 3, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
Take it as a fact from a newspaper publisher whose website suffers from the same problem that the fault lies with the editorial software that does not transfer the cropping geometry when outputting the picture to the web.
On the page, the full-sized picture was put into a smaller frame, resized, and moved to crop it like it appeared in print. When exported to the web, the editor’s commands to resize and crop were dropped.
It’s downright bad practice and unfair to the news — but it is the vendor’s fault, not the Washington Post’s. Don’t make a big thing out of it. It’s nothing.
Youngblood said,
October 3, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
What sbw said. It’s clearly an error. They wouldn’t have cut off Senator Biden’s head off like that if they wanted you to… well… see him. After all, most people don’t recognize Biden by the profile of the middle of his body.
And note, before people accuse me of being some kind of Obamabot or something, I’m voting for McCain despite Palin. I’m just pointing this out because you look incredibly silly.
James H said,
October 3, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
I used to be a newspaper copy editor/page designer, and I concur with the “error” hypothesis. Looks to me like somebody was asleep at the switch when the photo was moved from print side to Web side. In all the discussion here, nobody introduced the key element: the photo cutline. If the photo were intentionally altered, then the cutline would have been altered to reflect the edited photo.
On another note. Is that the best photo they had available? Doesn’t seem like very good lede art.
bobby b said,
October 3, 2008 @ 11:21 pm
“Did you notice how he laid hands on that young girl while discussing coal plants in China on the rope line? A few years ago this could have gotten a man in trouble.”
- - -
Thankfully, our attitudes about coal are more progressive than they were a few years ago.
DensityDuck said,
October 3, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
Like the man said; “don’t attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity”.
As others point out, if this were intentional, the cropped image would be taller and Biden’s face would be in it.
Shawn Levasseur said,
October 3, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
As to the missing ring, could it be that the picture (in both versions) was flipped so that is actually his RIGHT hand?
ellie said,
October 4, 2008 @ 12:27 am
Oh, Mortman, I love reading these comments! Laughing out loud is good for your health! Thanks for improving mine on a boring Friday nite.
pinandpuller said,
October 4, 2008 @ 1:04 am
If Piper went to Kindergarten in Chicago she would know all about bad touch-among other things.
Sean McAllister said,
October 4, 2008 @ 9:18 am
He’s telling her to get her hand of the childs boob
ldd said,
October 4, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Children don’t have ‘boobs’ Sean Mcallister, ahem…that’s just silly.
Personally I’m not comfortable with any man placing his hand on my daughters head like that, I’d have reactivity brushed it off, she’s not a pet dog of his. His body language screams, I WANT CONTROL of you woman!
Ha ha ha
Diggs said,
October 4, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Hmmm, Occam’s razor says that it could simply be a simple mistake of not resizing when posting to a webpage. However, that supposes the webpage automatic cropping default is to the lower right corner of the picture, that the lower right corner of the picture as shown is actually the lower right corner of the picture as uploaded, and that the webpage builder and the WaPo editors didn’t bother to look to see if the pictures was accurately uploaded, either before posting or after posting.
Uh, then again, maybe Occam’s razor says that it was a deliberate crop to remove the image of a man threatening a woman. This is the same WaPo that made a HUGE deal out of Lazio threatening Hillary with a piece of paper as if it were a butcher knife.
Which one seems more likely, a three-step “mistake” or a perfectly acceptable crop to make a picture fit the editors’ political leanings?
Andrew E said,
October 4, 2008 @ 10:59 am
Looks like a couple having an argument over the kid… Biden’s body language is a) aggressive, pointing at Palin and b) taking control of the child.
Merle Underwood said,
October 4, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
I think the focus is on the child.
pete e said,
October 5, 2008 @ 2:19 am
Biden’s way of touching is creepy.