by Jon Lackman | 26 November 2008 | Photography
Just as Sarah Palin’s fashion was hamfistedly spruced up by individuals hoping to help her fit in on the national stage, so a French minister’s image was recently edited by a sympathetic newspaper worried she might stand out in the wrong way. Or was it? André Gunthert writes in Actualités de la Recherche en histoire visuelle:
L’Express informs us that le Figaro, [on the cover of] its recent Nov. 19 issue, subtly removed a 15,600-euro diamond ring from the finger of the justice minister. An ungenerous reader might interpret this operation as a politically motivated manipulation — as Le Figaro , a pro-government newspaper that is nonetheless alert to the hardships of la France qui se lève tôt, working to correct the superficial blunders of less experienced ministers. The truth is much more interesting. Responding to questions from Eric Mandonnet, the daily’s photo-service editor Debora Altman clarifies: “We botched it in haste. We accept responsibility. We didn’t want the ring to be the subject of controversy, when the real subject was the judges’ petition. Rachida Dati had nothing to do with it.”
To my knowledge, it’s the first time that a national news organization fully admitted retouching an image. Recall the embarrassed denials of Paris-Match when it anatomically manipulated the head of state, assuring us that “the alteration of photos” should be “strictly forbidden.” Testimony to the advancing culture of retouching, these pious lies are no longer the fashion. But the confession made of the correction reveals another aspect of image usage that is also usually passed over silently. To admit that it was necessary to remove the jewel because it risked confusing the reader, is to admit that the usage of photography in journalism isn’t just determined by the primacy of the information. In conceding the retouching, one clearly acknowledges that the image appears here only by way of illustration, as a decorative material with no journalistic necessity.
