The core values of WBJ are honesty and integrity, and publishing a heavily altered photo would be disingenuous.
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The photo of me accompanying this column is not the favorite photo I’ve ever taken. WBJ switched to this photo in early 2020, after we deemed the previous photo of me happily balancing on the edge of the Hanover Theatre marquee not matching the tone of the column.
When this photo was taken, I hadn’t trimmed my beard, so the half smirk I was giving the camera was covered by my mustache. Instead of the smart, know-it-all look I wanted, we ended up with this photo, which I’ve since dubbed Angry Bearded Man. Rest assured, though, the image is 100% me, which isn’t something I had to clarify a few years ago. But, here we are.
Twice in the same week in February, we had to avoid publishing executive headshots on WBJournal.com stories because the submitted photos were too heavily Photoshopped or filtered. One photo was for the hiring of a new nonprofit executive director, where we luckily had another unfiltered alternative. The other story was about the retirement of a financial executive, where the submitted headshot from the company was so heavily altered, the photo looked more like an oil painting. We didn’t have an alternative, so I initially published the photo, but I later chose to remove it and run the story without a photo, something we earnestly strive to avoid.
The core values of WBJ are honesty and integrity, and publishing a heavily altered photo would be disingenuous. In every aspect of our reporting, we strive to present facts as accurately as possible. If we were to publish a photo where a 65 year old looks 35 or where you wouldn’t recognize the person in real life based on the photo, then we haven’t reported the facts accurately.
Unfortunately, this problem is growing. Tools like Photoshop are much more user-friendly, making it difficult to tell if a photo has been altered. Social media apps like Instagram have made the use of beautifying filters so ubiquitous, photo subjects expect their use. Over the summer, a Central Mass. college president had no fewer than three staff members reach out to me, insisting we swap out the photos taken of the president by WBJ’s photographer with ones submitted by the college.
The March 7 edition of WBJ features many portraits, particularly with our Business Leaders of the Year and WBJ Hall of Fame inductees. Before these photo shoots, I told the photographers to make the award winners look good, and they made use of dramatic light, varying poses, and interesting backgrounds. What they don’t do is de-age the subjects, or smooth over human features with filters or other tools. Trust us, when you see these leaders in real life, you can recognize them from these photos.
