Maybe there were good editorial reasons to crop G. W. and Laura Bush out of Sunday’s New York Times front-page photo, a photo accompanying their story about the Selma March for civil rights. Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the original march. To commemorate it, Barack and Michelle Obama, along with numerous civil rights leaders, including members of the original march, led a procession over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of a famous confrontation between marchers and Alabama state police. The story is here, and the picture that ran on the Times‘s front page is below:
According to today’s Torygraph, though, the original front line of marchers looked like this:
Where’s Walker?
According to the Torygraph, the conservative media is having a field day with this:
“For their front page, the Times curiously chose a picture that did not show the entire front line of marchers, choosing instead to leave the Bushes on the cutting room floor,” wrote Derek Hunter in the Daily Caller.
“It would be nice to contact the Times public editor Margaret Sullivan and have her ask around to see which editor thought it was a good idea to trim out the Bushes,” wrote Tim Graham for NewsBusters.org.
Twitter users also expressed their outrage at the exclusion of Mr Bush from the cover image.
“Despicable liberal media bias from NYT”, wrote one user.
“Another NYT pic of the Selma march cropped the Bushes out EXACTLY. You can see just a sliver of Laura Bush,” wrote another.
The Times story does say this, though:
Joining Mr. Obama on Saturday was former President George W. Bush, who signed the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006, as well as more than 100 members of Congress. About two dozen of them were Republicans, including the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California. While sitting onstage, Mr. Bush made no remarks, but rose to his feet to applaud Mr. Obama, and the two men hugged afterward.
This reminds me of my post in January describing how an ultra-orthodox Jewish newspaper doctored a photo of the Charlie Hebdo march to remove the pictures of Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini—simply because they were women. That was clearly deliberate, but what about this case? I can see that the entire photo is a bit messier than the cropped version, but really, Bush was a U.S. president who reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, something that current Republicans don’t like. And it was a show of solidarity between African-Americans and both liberal and conservative U.S. politicians. Someone had to make the decision to crop the Bushes out of that picture. I’m not accusing the Times of doing it deliberately, but I wouldn’t have shown it that way.
Before you pooh-pooh this as a trivial and meaningless decision, ask yourself what you would have thought had Obama been president before a currently-reigning G. W. Bush, Obama had renewed the voting rights act some years ago, and yet the Obamas had been cropped from the photo?
h/t: pyers
You can see Laura’s hair…
And, actually, I’d want to see all the photo options available to choose from before I jumped on anyone’s throat. The second picture on the bridge is no where near as impressive a shot as the one printed. If the one *printed* had actually been cropped before printing, that is reasonably heinous.
It does indeed look to be her hair. Bad decision if they did cut them out, just riles up the right. And look who’s right behind BO, jeez…
Nope, it’s not Laura’s hair! It’s the hair of the black woman in the dark outfit, wearing a white or silver broach. She and the black man with the blue tie obviously caught up with the Obama group. It’s two different compositions. I much prefer the first photo of the entire Obama family, including his daughter and her grandma on the extreme left. They were not visible in the second photo. I think both photos should have been published, for such a historic anniversary.
*brooch*
Indeed, I think the picture was probably chosen for including the whole Obama family and because it’s just a better quality picture in general. The light in the second shot is much better than in the first.
I really doubt that the Bushes were cut on purpose.
Huh? These two aren’t two versions of the same thing. One is on the bridge and the other is on a street. It isn’t a cropping issue it is a photo-selection issue.
Presumably the editors thought the one on the street conveyed something better (the size of the crowd) or something.
Still, I think it would have been better to include the former president, much as I detest the man.
I’d agree. What evidence do we have that the first photo is cropped? Is there a pre-cropped version of the same photo in which W is visible?
Now, perhaps the photographer was acting on an anti-W bias when he or she framed the shot, but that’s sheer speculation. It’s certainly not cropping, as that word is normally used.
And who knows what happened? Getting a picture of a large group of people on the move isn’t an exact science. Somebody’s gonna get left out.
W should’ve been included, fair enough. But “cropped” implies a deliberate act of photo modification for which we haven’t seen solid evidence, and it’s entirely possible there were no nefarious motives at play here.
It is fairly clear that the front line of the march didn’t change much between the two pictures. It is clear that the published pictures is either cropped, or was framed to exclude the right side of the march (where Bush was). You can tell this because of the location of the yellow center lines in the published picture. They are only showing the portion of the march on the left side of the road. We are only seeing half the front of the march in the published picture.
Of course, I don’t know why the picture was framed this way, maybe like the bridge picture the complete view wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing. However I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility of just not wanted to show Bush.
The thing is, Bush *was* included in one or more of the original photos. If the photographer is biased against Bush, why not leave Bush out altogether? It is not aesthetically pleasing to see a big gap in a crowd because of a divided roadway. In the photo with Bush, it almost looks like Bush and those around him had just joined the crowd, reminiscent of the final scene of Animal House.
Two things:
(a) The two photos were clearly taken at different stages of the march (one’s on the bridge, the other isn’t). We’ve no certain idea what the right-hand side of the march looked like in the NYT pic. There assuredly have been some changes of personnel — just look at Michele Obama’s right hand in the two pix.
(b) There’s always the possibility that the person doing the cropping didn’t immediately recognize who the dude in the white shirt was (if indeed he was there in the pic being cropped).
It could be that the NYT was being petty and spiteful, but I really can’t see it — it’s not the way the paper normally behaves and, besides, you get a much better caption if you have the two presidents there.
Oops: correction. At first I thought Michele was holding the hand of a different person in the two pix. Peering more closely, I can see that in both instances it’s her daughter but with a change of clothing.
Also, having blown the bridge pic up, it seems to be one of those — like the Paris ones a few weeks ago — where the dignitaries supposedly leading the parade are in fact some distance from it. A good enough reason for a responsible newspaper to reject the bridge pic in favor of something (apparently) a bit more genuine.
Minor correction to your correction: her daughter is wearing the same green dress in both pics. She didn’t stop to change clothes mid-march!
The lighting is different, though, so I can see it would be easy to think that. Unlike the picture from last week, where I can’t imagine how anyone could have seen a white and gold dress. Most optical illusions I can sort of see it both ways, but that dress was so obviously blue and black, that I couldn’t even begin to see it differently.
Minor correction to your correction: her daughter is wearing the same green dress in both pics.
Sorry: I can’t see it. She has an all-green dress in the NYT pic and some kind of top on (jacket & blouse?) in the bridge pic.
Take a closer look – there’s no jacket, just the same dress. In the bridge pic, the sun is to her right, so her left side is in the shade. Also, her right side is in the shadow of a person to her right. That leaves the center of the top to be in the sun, but mainly on the two vertical lines where her dress is sticking out because of her breasts.
I still don’t see it, and I’ve blown it up to about 5x ), but not to worry. I think we’re in agreement that the two pix were taken some considerable while apart so we really have no way of knowing if the Bushes were in the NYT shot.
I still think the bridge pic was a posed shot with the march proper being separated by some distance from the dignitaries.
Trust us, same mini dress. Difference in lighting.
Yes, sorry realthog, it’s definitely the same dress. 🙂
Nope. It is the same dress. The lighting is confusing, but it is the same green dress, or maybe skirt and blouse.
What you may be interpreting as a jacket and blouse is merely an affect of bright sun light falling across, i.e. from the side as opposed to frontal, the contours of the same outfit in the first pic.
No, I swear that dress sis gold and white…
It’s the lighting; or rather the color correction. The second photo is in bright daylight. The first photo has apparently been colour-enhanced. Notice how all the bright colors, especially the greens, really pop out.
I gather that I am the only person on the entire planet who saw that dress as being lilac and brown.
The intensely bright background told me that the photo was probably overexposed, so that what you saw in pixels was not what you would have seen with your own eyes.
Nobody is ever really cut out of a picture. There’s always the option to uncrop and enhance.
This is both weird and embarrassing. I hope they have a bloody good reason.
I can’t believe all the excuses people are making. I’m sure they took hundreds of photos and I’m sure there was an acceptable one that included the Bushes. It’s a bad editorial decision not to include them, and an insult to a former president. How bad a president he was is irrelevant.
And I’m shocked that the Voting Rights Act had to be reauthorized! Why wasn’t it permanent in the first place? I’m disgusted such an Act was ever even required too.
Maybe there is a good Bush picture, maybe not. I just went through a batch of old Christmas photos looking for a good shot of the four-year-old; not a one. Plenty of pictures of everyone else, no really good ones of her. The fact that Bush was way across on the other side of the road may be the reason there is no good march photo. Perhaps the organizers should have made sure Bush was closer to Obama; I would have.
I doubt their priority was getting Bush to look “really good”. All they needed was a shot with Bush looking like Bush(and arguably not even that – after all they can’t be so selective that every person of note in their photos must be instantly recognisable). Although it’s possible, I find it difficult to believe that there were no even halfway-decent photos that included the dear ex-leader – even if the motivation for leaving him out was purely pragmatic anyone with nous would realise how it would look, especially with a quivering tranche of conservatives scanning the media for insults. It would settle most of the arguments if the supposedly dodgy photo with W in it were released for general perusal.
It’s a strange decision.
The first photo is clearly superior.
I think the real reason they chose the picture they did was because of the Sharpton “photo-bomb.” He seems to be hidden in the bridge picture.
The photographer, Doug Mills, posted this photo on Twitter, which is marginally different (you can see more Laura), but still excludes GW.
https://twitter.com/dougmillsnyt/status/574335616227414016
Ooops, sorry about the embedding.
See my post above to comment#1 — that’s not Mrs. Bush’s hair! It’s the black woman with the short hair and some kind of light-coloured lapel pin or brooch.
Quite right. I think the sun falling on her top made it look sort of olive, which I think was the colour of LB’s top.
They are certainly two different photos, the upper one on Broad Street before reaching the bridge and the lower one on the bridge itself; but in the Broad Street one they appear to be showing only half the width of the street (note the yellow lines on the pavement at bottom right) and in the bridge one they are showing essentially the full width of the bridge.
That doesn’t mean the Broad Street one is cropped, and it’s reasonable to get the President “front and center”; but I think that a fuller street-width photo on Broad Street would have included the Bushes and it is a poor choice to use a photo that excludes them.
The problem is that GW is standing 15 feet or so from Obama, and that makes it hard to get them both in a photo without taking it from quite a way off or at an angle; and perhaps that is why the Times showed what it did.
I agree with you that this was a bad editorial decision for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it needlessly makes the Times appear biased and gives conservatives something to lose their minds (?) over. And really, as much as I was not a GWB fan while he was in office, I think it’s great that he and Laura were there showing solidarity from the Right. A chance at celebrating this solidarity was squandered by the Times for no good reason.
…and we all know that it doesn’t take much to get conservatives’ heads to explode- after all, they already think that there are at least 15 major “media-conspiracies” against them!
Agreed. While perhaps the photo was chosen/cropped for purely visual reasons, it is a shame to squander an opportunity to highlight some element of unity in a country that feels hazardously divided. The zero-sum vision of party politics: that anything embraced by one party must be hated by the other, is an attitude that will destroy us if left unchecked.
They didn’t Photoshop it. Reuters had a bad series of Photoshopped pics of the Gulf War.
If it was cropped by the newspaper rather than at the time it was taken, I’d go with the conspiracy theory.
Current digital cameras have the option of taking pictured in the 35mm 1×1.5 aspect ratio or in 4×5 ratio. this one looks like it was originally wider.
I noticed that the Wall Street Journal ran the same picture as the NYT.
You mean that left-wing lie factory with the pinko op-ed page? Typical WSJ fare!
Great!
If it was a grand conspiracy by the New York paper — they are taking the heat for it. How many of our media made note of the fact that neither majority leader in the house or senate even showed up? No one had to worry about those two being cut out of the picture.
It is the republican appointed section of the surpreme court that is turning the clock back on the voting rights act. Can’t get that in the photo.
This indeed meaningless and trivial, almost outrageously so. Couldn’t possibly care less if Obama got cropped out of a freaking picture.
But I am sure these sites are enjoying the click-bait and the usual partisan banter will continue unabated, and the level of political discourse in the country sinks ever lower.
Plus, what’s the NYT motivation? Their hatred for President Bush? What?
Also, the NYT refutes the story thusly:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nyt-george-w-bush-selma-crop
The photographer could send in the original, which would quell all the debate.
What debate? It’s the GOP’s outrage du jour simply trying to distract attention from President Obama’s inspiring speech.
What debate? It’s the GOP’s outrage du jour simply trying to distract attention from President Obama’s inspiring speech.
Precisely.
+2
Tempest in your teacup, anyone? The picture actually used is much better for a number of reasons. The newspaper has to decide whether there was also a good picture with GWB included, something we don’t know. They could have added a separate picture of GWB at the march, which would have been a good place to point out his civil rights credentials.
Reminds me of Walt Kelly’s temptress in a teapot.
The first photo has both Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia, included, whereas the second photo cuts out one of them (Malia). While I agree that it’s excellent for GW and Laura Bush to have attended the anniversary march, I think it’s also important to include the current POTUS First Family in the photo. The front line of marchers may have been too wide to include everyone (says the person who detests being squished together for large group photos).
I agree with you. I really doubt that a slight of G.W. & Laura was intentional, but that doesn’t mean that the conservatives won’t see a conspiracy when there is none. The photo chosen was a much better photo – balanced and shows the large crowd behind, plus the entire first family. The one on the bridge is rather disjointed what with the awkward median interfering with the march. The photo was probably chosen because it was aesthetically more pleasing. A wider shot including the Bushes would have made the marchers almost unrecognizable.
+1
Given the format requirements for the newspaper’s front page as well as being “above the fold”, the first photo is clearly superior in terms of its visual impact. So I’m not seeing an ulterior motive here on the part of the NYT. I do wonder if it would have been appropriate for G.W. Bush to have been walking closer to Obama though. But that’s something I’m not even close to having an informed opinion about.
The picture that includes both presidents look to be at a lower resolution. The details are very pixelated.
The photo with the Bushes is clearly from a later point in the march. The clue is the black rectangular sign to the right of center. What I can’t say is whether the early photo (sans Bushes) was a crop or that they were just out of the frame. In my view it’s not possible to tell from the photos whether leaving out the Bushes was intentional.
While the cropped photo is more detailed, a photo of the solidarity between politically different presidents would have been more meaningful.
The NYTimes has responded. Here’s a summary.
“Bush was in the bright sunlight,” he explained. “I did not even send this frame because it’s very wide and super busy and Bush is super-overexposed because he was in the sun and Obama and the others are in the shade.”
A rare case of superior albedo working against someone.
+1 ‘Nuff said!!
How can someone in such bright light manage to remain so dim?
At least he has shown the good judgment to stay out of the spotlight since he left the White House. I wish Cheney would take a lesson from that.
Seems like a poor editorial choice to me.
What might help for context is that that bridge that features prominently in the 2nd picture is named after a KKK grand dragon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Pettus
Wow, excellent point. This is something I didn’t know!
But Bush wasn’t cropped from the photo, he’s simply not in the frame. NYT’s employees are savvy enough to know any perceived snub of Bush would be noticed, and would get them in hot water. I see no reason whatsoever to assume anything other than someone not thinking.
“Cropped” implies they did work to cut Bush out of the photo, but if you look at all the photos being cited here it’s clear they didn’t crop him out, they just used a photo that doesn’t include him. I suppose you can say it was done for liberal bias, but it was probably done because the photo they used is actually a better photo, better composed, more striking image.
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Selma
I suppose I would be bothered if the shoe were on the other foot, cropping-wise. Hopefully I will be able to keep this incident in mind, however, and maintain the same shrugging attitude I have about this one.
Two speculative comments on how the issue would be handled were this a case of a Dem edited out of a Repug photo op: 1) the newsworthiness of the photo is in the sitting president’s marching at the front of the line, so it only makes sense to crop the photo such that he is in the center so quit your whining; and 2) were the Democratic Party in staunch opposition to the policies represented by the event being photographed, I would expect the response from the right to be a lock-step condemnation of the party for it, and of the former (Dem) president for having the gall to try to steal the spotlight from the sitting (Repug) president.
Also, this:
Yes, let’s not make it into a political conversation. Jeebus.
Tim Scott’s has to be the stupidest political remark of the week so far. Mind you, it’s still only Monday . . .
It’s stupidity backed by hours of scientific message testing and careful word smithing – really, the worst kind of stupidity.
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The content of the picture to me is of small consequence, here we have the first twice elected non- Anglo President of the United States of America along with assembled politicians and civil rights notables shown on the Edmund Pettus bridge named in the honor of Confederate States of America brigadier general, Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK christian nationalist terrorist organization, and twice elected senator to the U.S. senate from Alabama that honors him with a bridge naming; a wide spread practice in the American south. This is one more example of the confederate/neo- confederate south having won the battle to canonize the defeated leadership of the CSA and their doomed to fail project to preserve slavery/apartheid in the United States. Pettus name will now be wrongly associated by, the ahistorical,with the fight for human rights along side of those brave men and women who were opposed to everything he stood for in his public and private life. Yes, it was good that former President Bush and his wife were there showing solidarity with President Obama and those who risked their lives for freedom and justice on that terrible day, let’s demonstrate the country’s commitment to human rights by starting with the symbolic act of renaming the bridge in the Alabama state house and then a congressional renewal of the voting rights act.
+1
Incredibly biased comments. Even those who think the photo chosen should include the Bushes make excuses for the Times. Anyone who thinks the editors of the NY Times didn’t know that a former president was left out of their choice of photos is naïve or formed an opinion based on what they want to believe. Yes, they probably weren’t actually “cropped” out of the photo. More likely, the photo they used was chosen from among several possibilities including at least one that shows the former president and his wife. The result is the same as cropping him out.
In the unlikely event that you are not trolling: it has already been noted that the Wall Street Journal used the same photo. Are you accusing them of bias also? Would you have altered the photo yourself to make it appear that Bush and Obama were walking together?
I am not trolling. I’m a long time fan of this site and it’s host and I’ve commented many times on posts here. Sorry if my comment doesn’t meet your standards. I’m choosing to not answer your other insulting question.
Its not it’s.
The NY Times says the photo was printed exactly as they received it from the photographer, and was not cropped. The photographer said he couldn’t get both presidents in the photo at the same time for technical reasons.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/there-was-no-crop-of-selma-photograph/?_r=0
Thanks.
I was just looking at the White House web site, reading Obama’s speech, and they have also a set of photos taken by their official photographer, Pete Souza. One, of the start of the march, looks almost the same as the NYTimes photo; two more, on the bridge, clearly show the Bushes. There are also photos showing the Bushes on stage with the Obamas and GW talking with the Obama children. https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/03/08/behind-lens-selma-50-years-later
Better comparison, if this took place 12 yeas ago and they had cropped the picture eliminating Clinton. No I wouldn’t care, the picture they took is the right focal point to make a good picture for the paper. The question should be, why wasn’t Bush within that focal point? But that would be a bit arrogant, wouldn’t it?
I hadn’t even thought of it that way, but I feel the same. Not only would I not have cared I wouldn’t have noticed. And if my fellow dems did. and made an issue of it I would have thought them silly.