At least a year and a day in the Tower.
That they put a kill notice on the Kate photo isn’t sufficient evidence for you? Someone from AFP publicly claimed that “AFP’s decision to “kill” the photo of Middleton was a rare, dramatic move normally reserved for North Korean or Iranian propaganda.” and “To issue a kill notice is a “big deal,” he added, saying that “to kill something on the basis of manipulation” is rare and happens maybe once per year.”
Every government that deals with the press knows what the rules are, this is not some obscure thing, it’s a very basic 101 practice of dealing with the press. Even countries like Russia know that it’s legit to put Putin in lifted shoes to make him seem taller but it’s not legit to photoshop Putin to seem taller and submit that photo to international press.
You are right. My apologies to Mr. Murphy, who would def not have appreciated that slip.
Not sure if you’re doing a bit but Pedro Pascal was born in Chile (but has American citizenship) and Margot Robbie was born in Australia (and retains Australian citizenship). Of the 4 actors you named, only Vin Diesel was born in America.
The “they” in this case being the press so, no, it does not speak to what the royals have been understanding was their obligation regarding the difference between providing pictures of “news” vs a Mother’s Day celebration card to the nation.
It speaks to what the press is stating they are determining the difference to be.
I am certainly not a journalist or in any government but my mind sees a difference between a photo of news (a royal opening a hospital or greeting a dignitary for example), and when a photo is the object that is the news, not of something newsworthy. I’m not sure all those standards apply in the latter case.
Of course this is the blurry case as the condition of the individual implied in the photo is news to royal watchers …
Again a regular pattern by the royals of fixing up photos of things like holiday family greetings, but not of photos of them in news events, would speak to their understanding having not been the same as the media’s. It’s beginning to sound like maybe that pattern exists, rather than this being a specific event designed to hide something of significance.
If that were the case, you would see like, the government of Belize or the Royal Family of Sweden be issued with kill notices because they also innocently didn’t understand the rules. That simply doesn’t happen, everyone understand the rules, the only people who try to violate the rules are those so far outside the international order that they simply don’t care anymore and even then, it happens about once a year and it’s done with knowing intent. Even Russia and China understand the rules and are 100% willing to comply with them.
It’s simply not credible that the royal family can be this smol little bean that didn’t know that was how it was supposed to go. The range of photo manipulations allowed and disallowed is extremely clear and something like creating composite shots is so far outside of those bounds.
I’m sorry but Russia and China, even the Royal family of Sweden, are not sending what they think are Mother’s Day greetings to be shared with the British people.
This was a unique case which had what was essentially a greeting card containing something that was, if true, “news” to royal watchers: the condition of the specific individual.
If there have been multiple other episodes of doctored photos of the greeting card sort, and not of real news events, then I’d find the press not noticing it before to be improbable. Maybe they never killed it before because the photos were not considered of news events.
I admit to being bemused by the level of response to such a petty clause of the comment. The point was about people being able to be celebrities without opening their bedrooms to the world. Removing the word “American” does not change my point in the slightest.
But yes, it’s true, we tend to think of everyone we turn into a multi-millionaire as being “ours” in a sense. Not bought, exactly, but once they get the house in LA your bigwigs are belong to us.
My suggestion is that the Royal Family revert to releasing only painted portraits, rather than photographs. That way, the image can be doctored in any way they want because people expect less realism in a painting.
Sure, that is a legitimate difference. That’s why all these organizations are able to publish the manipulated photo now, because the photo itself is the news. You’ll also note that in all legitimate news sites, it is clearly identified as a manipulated image. But this does not apply to the original photo as it was submitted, because at that time the news was the subjects of the photo, not the photo itself.
I’ve seen reports that one other photo provided by the palace was determined to have been manipulated. Are there other photos that have been identified? I’m not sure two counts as a pattern.
This wasn’t unique; it’s common practice for the palace to provide photos like this to the press.
If they haven’t killed ones in the past, it’s because they didn’t detect the manipulation. The standards are very clear, and they are not making judgments about how newsworthy something is.
But they are sending “proof of life” photos, as well as Mother’s Day photos, to their own people. And when they use AP to do it, they know they have to follow AP rules.
Call me a cynic but I would be completely unsurprised to find out that the Royal family of Sweden has submitted and had published touched up photos. No one has bothered to look because no one cares. And if pointed out I doubt there would have ever been a big blow back.
That people care this time is what is a big deal for this one exploding: it is potentially more than removing a blemish or softening a wrinkle line; it was being taken as actual evidence of well being when that well being was in doubt, and it’s actually being falsified was a big deal in that context.
Even if it’s clearly just a mistake? Like Nurse Smith is caring for Mr. Brown, (Patient ID 23-5439), who had a spate of vomiting. After the cleanup and all, Nurse Smith goes to log the vomiting in Mr. Brown’s records but accidentally types 23-5349 into the field. As soon as the patient’s record displays she realizes she goofed, because this patient was in to give birth, while Mr. Brown was having a hernia repair, She immediately closes the wrong record, retypes the ID correctly and carries on with updating Mr. Brown’s chart.
Should Nurse Smith be automatically fired for this mistake? That would be awfully draconian.
(I say this as someone prone to reversing numbers on occasion. I never accidentally opened a royal personages records, but I did oopsy into a famous Red Sox player’s account once. And in my case, they were psychiatric records which, if anything, patients would be even MORE upset about if their privacy was compromised. It was well understood by all that opening records without justification was taboo and could be cause for firing, but it was also understood that even good typists make mistakes sometimes.)
I don’t think her disappearance has anything to do with illness. I think there’s some kind of friction in the marital bed between the prince and princess. That’s why he is absent from the family photo. They just don’t want to talk about it.
I’d say that is by far the most reasonable belief. These are professionals, who have been sending photos to the new organizations for decades at least. They would need to know their policies. And they know they’re news organizations, which means they’re trying to report the truth.
The only reason to even give this photo to a news organization is to say “See, Kate is fine. Here she is.” So if it’s not actually showing Kate, but she’s been edited in, then that’s clearly lying to the news and the public. So they knew they were being misleading, even if they somehow didn’t know the policies.
So I don’t understand why you need proof that they knew that they weren’t supposed to send significantly altered photos to the press. It’s not some guy from across the street who is sending in his first news photo.
I do suspect that, since this one is fake, they’ve also sent other fakes. But I don’t find it unreasonable that the AP and other news orgs wouldn’t notice if the general public didn’t. There are far more experts in spotting fakes in the general public than these news orgs would have.
Do remember this Photoshop job was rather poorly done.
Edit: also, it would only be if they didn’t other fakes that I would find it more likely that someone just screwed up. Because one person screwing up does fit Hanlon’s razor. But not it being a general policy to lie to the press. and not realize they’d have a problem with that.
You need not strive to bribe or twist
The honest British journalist
For, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there’s no occasion to
(Hilaire Belloc, I believe).
The biggest surprise has been that, somehow, the Royal Family are unable to hire competent PR or commission competent photoshopping.
For very little effort early on, they could have killed this story outright. Now? Not so easy to win back the trust they’ve lost.
No, because the firing offense isn’t accidentally seeing the wrong patient’s records, that must happen all the time. It’s
Bolding added.
(And yes, it takes judgement to determine why someone looked at those records. Releasing info to the press is certainly an indication of that intent.)
I would say that kind of error would be totally non-problematic. I work with a employee records and pay tool that also logs usage. I can tell the difference in the logs between someone who has mis-clicked and/or picked a wrong but similar name out of search results vs someone browsing out of personal interest. And that all comes down to how long they looked at the wrong record and how much they clicked around inside it.