Photo cropping mistake leads to AP soul-searching on race

Photo cropping mistake leads to AP soul-searching on race

SeattlePI.com

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NEW YORK (AP) — A “terrible mistake” in cropping an African climate activist out of a photo sent to customers of The Associated Press prompted soul-searching and some tense staff conversations over issues of racism and inclusion Monday at the news organization.

The AP acknowledged that it aggravated the error through its initial response on Friday, and that it will expand diversity training worldwide as a result.

“My hope is that we can learn from this and be a better news organization going forward,” Sally Buzbee, the news service's executive editor and senior vice president, said Monday. “I realize I need to make clear from the very top, from me, that diversity and inclusion needs to be one of our highest priorities.”

An AP photographer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland took a picture Friday of five activists, including the well-known Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and Ugandan Vanessa Nakate, who were there to discuss climate change. Preparing to send the image, the photographer cropped out Nakate, leaving a picture of four white women before a scenic mountain backdrop.

The initial explanation for the cropping was that it enabled a close-up of Thunberg, and that it removed a distraction — a building behind where Nakate was standing.

The image was sent to AP's customers worldwide by an editor who was unaware that someone had been cropped out. Editors and critics on social media spotted the cropping quickly and pronounced it both insensitive and an error journalistically.

Other photos were sent out that included Nakate. The AP waited more than a day to take the original cropped shot out of circulation.

A tearful Nakate posted a video on social media saying that when she saw the photo online, “it was the first time in my life that I understood the definition of the word...

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