The funniest news story illustration of 2009
December 31, 2009
I bet there are lots of contenders for this category that I missed, but, seeing that my summary of the media year gone by has yet to be published, and I didn't touch on this there, here's my favourite:
Why would anyone do this to a horse? Well, the horse in the photo had nothing to do with the story it was used to illustrate, about horse smuggling, so the editor thought it best to make sure nobody recognised the horse in the photo... Something to chew on for die hard ethicists? Full story in Norweigan here.
That's very funny. Tongue in cheek or political correctness? I'll do that next time I use an animal picture where the animal is not part of the story and see what reaction I get.
Posted by: Michael | January 02, 2010 at 08:15 AM
Even better: when interviewed the news editor told a colleague that if he hadn't taken this measure the owner would have recognised the horse! If it was my horse, covering its eyes would certaily not prevent me from recognising it. It might indeed have been tounge in cheek, but the editor didn't admit to it being so when interviewed. He did say this news illustration had prompted a stream of text messages and emails from readers though: most of them found it very amusing...
Posted by: Kristine | January 04, 2010 at 09:36 PM
Years ago the local media got whipped into a frenzy about a particular spider we rarely see in Ohio. The spider they showed in the news cast was not the type of spider they we were to worry about. I don't think they were trying to protect the identity of the spider in question -- they just wanted something creepier looking (not that any spider is particulary cuddly).
Posted by: delmer | January 05, 2010 at 01:44 PM
Hmm... was the spider clearly labeled as not the spider in question? News cast you say, I don't expect they told they're audience about the "deception"? In the interest of transparency they should of course have said both that they ran with a pic of a different kind of spider and why... that could have been fun actually;-)
Posted by: Kristine | January 05, 2010 at 02:11 PM