10 ms·

One thing I find really weird is the choice of CEO photos in media reporting. If there is good news, they chose 'nice', attractive photos. If there is bad news,

• hkmurakami 10y ago
  Why is that weird? The photo choice manipulates the reader impression just as they intend. Perhaps what you might mean is something like "disingenuous" or "biased" or "unethical"
  • smegel 10y ago
    > "disingenuous" or "biased" or "unethical" Mainstream journalism will also do just fine.
    • M_Grey 10y ago
      Implying that once outside of the "mainstream" journalistic integrity suddenly improves? Nonsense.
      • harry8 10y ago
        Implying that staying inside the "mainstream" journalistic integrity suddenly improving is a false assumption. I don't know that I agree with it, but it's a valid opinion to have that mainstream is no better than elsewhere.
        • M_Grey 10y ago
          I addressed someone's implication, I didn't offer one of my own.
          • harry8 10y ago
            And my interpretation of their implication differed to yours, as I explained.
      • logicallee 10y ago
        But it does. We (readers here, you, me, etc) are far outside of mainstream at this news site, HN, and journalistic standards are much higher. When you go from default subreddits to niche ones, the journalidtic integrity improves substantially. Yes, yes, once outside the mainstream, integrity suddenly improves, across the board.
        • M_Grey 10y ago
          We're not journalists, this is not a journalistic outlet.
          • logicallee 10y ago
            I'm just going to go ahead and disagree. This is journalism and news in 2016. (I'm also including people's blog write-ups that they or others submit.) On tech and fundraising issues, I'd say HN and yhe niche blog posts submitted, do count for a kind of journalism.
            • M_Grey 10y ago
              Only by throwing the definition of the word out the window to make a point, could that possibly fly.
              • logicallee 10y ago
                Fair enough. there's no good word for people giving lots of facts in a blogpost that is meant to be informative, open to comments, includes updates and good-faith efforts to be informative and correct. it may not be journalism, but people read these blog posts and these posts have huge weight. I don't think there's historical precedent for this kind of self-publishing, so not sure the terminology has caught up, but I'll concede your point regarding the specific term 'journalism'. Would you include in 'journalism' very badly-written articles that are done by a writer collecting or reporting on sources (example: reporting on a tweet and its responses), while using horrific grammar and being very low-quality? You know the kind of link-bait 'articles' I'm talking about - I wonder if you would consider that part of journalism or not.
  • alexqgb 10y ago
    Alternately, it reflects the tenor of the story and the facts it contains. You could say this is inappropriate editorializing, but that makes the obviously absurd implication that fraud is a neutral thing, and that there are many good kinds of fraud in additional to the bad ones. If you're reporting clear facts about something unambiguously bad, then it's entirely appropriate for the supporting photographs to support the article.
    • djf1 10y ago
      It's entirely appropriate for the supporting photographs to support the article, but that's not what the parent is questioning. If the news is based on facts, then the facts can speak for themselves. An unflattering photo does not support the article if the article is not related to how well the subject takes photos.
      • 36bydesign 10y ago
        So no photo is the way to go? Unless the article is about taking photos?
        • djf1 10y ago
          I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. I just took issue with the suggestion that an unflattering picture somehow supports an article about shady business practices.
          • Shivetya 10y ago
            I don't see the unflattering aspect here, to we want her perfectly done up with makeup and hair? that too would insinuate a disconnect from common people. in the picture I saw my take away was she was trying to explain a situation and nicely at that. is this all a male perception of a problem they fully do not understand and therefor think they know how its perceived by the opposite sex?
            • 10y ago
  • camillomiller 10y ago
    As a journalist, I disagree. In this case the technique is used more to portray the way Holmes is perceived publicly (a "neurotic and delusional powerful woman out of control" -- not my opinion, just what the photo conveys), than to add a spin to a story that's already independently and factually spun in a very clear direction. The use FoxNews does of this photo-picking with President Obama or liberal politicians is much worse. Or check the tabloids, they're masters at that. This one? Just fine. I also want to point out that the picture is all but an outtake. Photography agencies publish photos like this on their online collections all the time, they won't discard them. Exactly because they know outlets may pick them for a story where they would fit.
    • NumberCruncher 10y ago
      >>As a journalist, I disagree. In this case the technique is used more to portray the way Holmes is perceived publicly As a non journalist this is what I call manipulation.
      • celticninja 10y ago
        Then so is the text.
      • johncolanduoni 10y ago
        Do you feel picking a photo to match the caption is more manipulative than picking a caption to match the photo?
    • conjectures 10y ago
      > the way Holmes is perceived publicly ...which presumably is almost entirely based on what they read or see in the media?
      • camillomiller 10y ago
        Do you know any other way of forming a public opinion about someone you've never met and probably never will?
• dbcooper 10y ago
  A lot of media outlets have used Theranos' insane official PR shots for pictures of Holmes.
• bbarn 10y ago
  She looks insane in every photo I've ever seen of her. Even the company vetted ones her eyes are always wide open and she looks nervous.
  • nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Eh, I see where you're going. There's two ways to look at that, though. One is worrying about her sanity. The other is thinking she's an energetic, ambitious person pushing her product and company. You'll see a lot of what's in the photos if you ever delve into the world of sales teams and marketing execs. ;)
    • davidivadavid 10y ago
      Huh, what? You mean a bit like you would see a lot of autistic neckbeards if you ever delve into the world of software engineering? I can't see how looking crazy with wide open eyes and fake smiles correlates with "sales teams and marketing execs." That's a completely gratuitous caricature.
      • nickpsecurity 10y ago
        The profession is about enthusiasm and confidence. So, many people there are constantly smiling, wide-eyed, vigorously shaking your hand like you're their lost brother, telling you how happy you'll be with the product, and so on. Many of them. They're also usually successful to some degree.
  • cko 10y ago
    She looks ok in google image searches. I'd personally like to meet her just to find out how she convinced so many people to invest in her company.
• matt-attack 10y ago
  > it's a photo a photographer would not keep in their image selection. Yep. And I wonder what David Paul Morris [1] thinks of having his work used in this manner. It doesn't reflect well upon him as a photographer that's for sure. [1] http://davidpaulmorris.com/ http://davidpaulmorris.com/
  • taytus 10y ago
    His work is not great either.
  • danso 10y ago
    Er...why wouldn't it reflect well on him? The caption for the photo attributes it to him and the Bloomberg News, which means: 1. It's part of the Bloomberg News catalog 2. It may have been published on Bloomberg's own stories of Theranos. 3. WSJ had to pay for the right to use that photo. How would any of those things reflect badly on the photographer?
    • matt-attack 10y ago
      You forgot: 4. It's a horrible photograph that makes the photographer look incompetent.
      • celticninja 10y ago
        No, the photo makes the subject look odd it does not make the photographer look incompetent. The fact that the picture was used by the WSJ shows the picture is good enough for publication.
      • danso 10y ago
        I'm not sure how Bloomberg News stores/sells their photos, but on a service like Getty Images, you'll find plenty of b-roll type images, because some clients will want "normal" photos, or alternate angles. Here's the Getty results for Elizabeth Holmes: http://www.gettyimages.com/photos/elizabeth-holmes?family=editorial&phrase=elizabeth%20holmes&sort=best&excludenudity=true#license http://www.gettyimages.com/photos/elizabeth-holmes?family=ed... In any case, it's not the publication's job to make someone look good or glamorous. It's not the most flattering photo of Holmes but it's not terribly off from what she normally looks like (in general, photos of someone while they're talking/eating aren't going to be ideal, in terms of attractiveness).
• madeofpalk 10y ago
  This is insanely common in all forms of reporting, long before tech crunch was reporting on startups
• maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Generalization from a small sample?
  • tlb 10y ago
    Here's another sample from today. You could do accurate sentiment analysis entirely based on the CEO photos. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-10/coal-miner-s-ceo-calls-tesla-a-fraud-and-elon-musk-tweets-it http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-10/coal-miner... If you keep an eye out for it, you may notice the same pattern.
• nraynaud 10y ago
  Storytelling, they are reinforcing their text. Truth doesn't matter anymore, you need to convince people.
• arvinds 10y ago
  normies read news from Facebook and need a feed cover image to click on articles
• protomyth 10y ago
  Photo choice is one of the most effective editorial tools a publication has. For example, do they show a photo of the person as a child, wearing a suit, or casual clothes posed with a weapon? Each is technically the same person, but all will prejudice your view towards the subject.
  • Steko 10y ago
    This photo from Bloomberg photographer David Paul Morris has been used in several dozen stories about Theranos over the last 11 plus months. Sometimes HN tries to be too clever and I don't mean to direct that at you but basically every sibling and cousin comment in this subthread. HN Challenge: next Theranos thread don't upvote comments about CEO's appearance.
    • protomyth 10y ago
      I actually don't care about her appearance, and it's not being too clever. Editors pick specific photos for reasons often subconscious ones. You can look at a photo used in a story and see the basic prejudice of the editorial. Ignoring information provided is a poor way to evaluate the source. That the same photo is used often is a data point. Thinking everything is about a woman's appearance in a photo ignores a whole class of information. Your HN Challenge is a call for ignorance which I'll skip.
  • Mithaldu 10y ago
    Editorializing (i.e. opinions) should stay in the opinion pieces, not be mixed in with reporting of facts. It calls the trustworthiness of the entire rest of the article in question. (Although i guess it's kinda nice if it's done blatantly so you already know in advance the article is particularly untrustworthy.)
    • protomyth 10y ago
      > Editorializing (i.e. opinions) should stay in the opinion pieces, not be mixed in with reporting of facts. preaching to the choir > It calls the trustworthiness of the entire rest of the article in question. (Although i guess it's kinda nice if it's done blatantly so you already know in advance the article is particularly untrustworthy.) In a lot of ways it is subconscious, but not always. If you take a objective view and look at US Presidential 2016 race articles, you get a pretty good feel for the base opinion of the editors from the picture they use of the candidates. Every news outlet has a prejudice, and I find the choice of images to be one of the easy ways to communicate that to you. If you look for it, you can gear your reaction to the information provided.
• seesomesense 10y ago
  " If there is good news, they chose 'nice', attractive photos. If there is bad news, they look for worse ones. " Thank you. I found that insightful. I must confess that I never noticed that before ( but I am not a people person )
• Alex3917 10y ago
  > This is true for male and female founders. It's not just founders, think about the pictures of Obama and O.J. where they were made blacker. Or the images of James Holmes or Saddam. People will actually complain and threaten to kill the magazine editors if they don't make the 'bad guys' look evil enough; look at what happened with the Rolling Stone photo of the Boston Marathon bomber.
  • briandear 10y ago
    The problem with the Boston thing is that RS put them on the cover -- essentially giving them one of the most honored spots in music. That's what people were mad about -- elevating monsters and putting them at the same level as you might Bono. They weren't complaining about the saturation or hue.
    • sangnoir 10y ago
      > elevating monsters and putting them at the same level as you might Bono. I disagree with the dehumanization of people who do dispicable things (e.g. the Boston Bomber or Nazis) - they were not monsters but humans like you and I; only with very warped belief systems. There danger is that categorizing them as monsters will limit our understanding of how they come about and/or how to prevent this from recurring in the future. On the issue of appearing on a magazine cover - I do not think the glamorizing was intentianal. Good-looking people dominate covers, and monster or not, the dude was good looking. Hitler was once Time magazine "Man of the Year" - they were not lionizing him, but only declaring he had made the greatest impact of the year.
• spraak 10y ago
  Also what's done when brown/black people are in the news, except most often it doesn't matter if it's good or bad -- the media in both cases looks for a not so flattering picture.
• ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  I've been reading some US political news on a reddit app recently, and you can pinpoint the spin from the thumbnail photo better than the headline in most cases. Would be an interesting art project to collect them all together get people to rate the images on some scale and display a visual political gradient.
• SmokyBourbon 10y ago
  Why it's almost as if journalists manipulate the news to fit a narrative. Weird.
• aswanson 10y ago
  The most hilarious example of this I've seen is a forbes article where they managed to dig up a picture of Warren Buffet with a psychopath-like expression on his face for some type of investigation a subsidiary company he invested in was under.