Lance Armstrong: No Sense of Humor or Misrepresented in Outside Magazine?

Duncan Christy said on 30 Jul, 2010 at 9:08 AM
Hey, Lucinda: How I wish this were so: "Magazine editors and creative directors need to take the long view, and invest in the trust and admiration of the public by showing restraint. Or, risk going the way of the snake-oil salesmen of the 1800s." Although not a cynic by nature, the cynic in me sees way, way, way too much unpunished manipulations of both fact and image. I'd truly love to think of a tribunal where such could be punished. Pushing this idea back to you, what would appropriate punishments be? And, certainly, thanks for your very thoughtful remarks. I also liked this: "I don't think anyone should lighten up about this issue." Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 30 Jul, 2010 at 9:04 AM
Hey, Michael: Thanks for writing. I'm intrigued by this remark: "It's as if the question of what's right or wrong will forever be secondary to the question of what's possible." Don't think me adversarial, but I'd prefer not to think so. Or at least to hope not so. Despite what most seem to regard as his humorlessness, probably rightly, Lance is entitled to his point. We've just seen a much, much larger - and of course much more toxic - example of this in the Andrew Breitbart "reshaping" of Shirley Sherrod's remarks to portray her as a racist. I for one am glad she's suing, given the magnitude of the defamation. Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 17 Jul, 2010 at 7:31 AM
Hey, Will: I hadn't heard about the Demi Moore thing until yours, so thank you as it's hilariously funny. And sad. It makes me think how brave the editors of More were, as well as Jamie Lee Curtis herself, when they put her on their cover absolutely unadorned. OK, so we may not want to look at that every day. Yes, life does require some embellishment. But in that case Jamie Lee was entirely cooperative, as opposed to here with Lance, and that's the key distinction. Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 13 Jul, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Hey, Emily: Thanks for writing. I think you put it with an admirable simplicity: "As a journalist you're supposed to report as objectively as you can, and its irresponsible to manipulate someone's image, especially without their consent." There are many cynics who might quarrel with the first part of your message about objectivity. But among those of us who take it seriously - and regard the truth in journalism as truly something sacred - it's the cardinal principle. Duncan

Michael H. Bartlett said on 10 Jul, 2010 at 6:33 AM
Cool question, along the lines of who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? Manipulation of images changes everything, yet we are supposed to blindly trust red-light and security cameras, and now, body scanners at airports. Content delivery businesses on one hand ask us to trust them, then have whole departments gleefully upgrading Photoshop to the latest version for even more functionality. If it sells content, it works. It's as if the question of what's right or wrong will forever be secondary to the question of what's possible.
I also think when you're a shameless publicity hound you surrender public sympathy when your cover picture isn't quite to your liking, and that we all know he sat down in front of that camera for personal gain. Maybe his agent needs to be more specific in clause 52-b(3).

Duncan Christy said on 10 Jul, 2010 at 1:37 AM
Sharon: Thanks for writing. You ask the right question and in exactly the right terms: "How are you supposed to know what's true and real?" As editors confronted with a situation like this, we have to wonder: Is our traditional sense of ethics simply outmoded? We know we feel something is wrong. But do our readers, particularly the youngest ones, who have grown up in a time of real fakery and with the cynicism thereof? Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 09 Jul, 2010 at 7:19 AM
Geoff: Thanks for yours. I had deliberately refrained from an explicit point of view in the original posting to try to encourage the greatest reaction. That done, I can point out that I feel as you do. What, for example, if the editors had put something like, "F*** you, Floyd!" on his shirt - which actually would have been funny (at least to some)? The simple point is that they should have asked, and didn't. Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 09 Jul, 2010 at 7:13 AM
Steve: I think you're right about the scope of this. But, unlike, say, that deliberate staging of the kiss - in which the two principals voluntarily participated - Lance had no say over this. Evidently it bothered him, for reasons we'll perhaps never know.
Regardless, thanks for writing, and for your savvy commentary. Duncan

Emily said on 08 Jul, 2010 at 8:48 AM
Having studied journalism I can't say it doesn't make me a little bit squeamish. At least based on the ethical standards we are supposed to follow, what Outside Magazine did was pretty wrong.

As a journalist you're supposed to report as objectively as you can, and its irresponsible to manipulate someone's image, especially without their consent. I understand why someone would criticize Lance for not having a sense of humor-the change in question is pretty minor and harmless, but in the end it is his body and his image. I think its more the principal that annoyed him and the principal annoys me too.

Lucinda Hahn said on 08 Jul, 2010 at 5:55 AM
First, Lance Armstrong looks 48 on this cover, not 38.

But who knows: Maybe the creative director Photoshopped some extra lines onto Armstrong's face to make him look especially aged -- to further drive home the cover theme that Lance is no longer a kid.

It's possible. And no, I don't think anyone should lighten up about this issue.

The problem: When readers can't trust what they're seeing on the pages of what purports to be a journalistic product, the product ceases to be relevant to those readers.

Also, because almost everything we see is fake -- from Lindsay Lohan's lips to the waists of Ralph Lauren print-ad models -- fake is no longer special or interesting. Eighth graders can Photoshop words onto T-shirts and create special effects on their YouTube videos.

What IS special? Capturing reality in ways that are true and moving and unique. (Like, if Outside's creative director had had the creative foresight to commission a t-shirt with said words, and asked Lance to wear it to send a message about aging strongly.)

But doing "reality" is difficult -- and the more distorted the world becomes by the manipulation of images, the more readers will value authenticity.

Magazine editors and creative directors need to take the long view, and invest in the trust and admiration of the public by showing restraint. Or, risk going the way of the snake-oil salesmen of the 1800s.

Duncan Christy said on 07 Jul, 2010 at 12:37 PM
hey, Tim: Thanks much for the thoughtful response regarding Lance and the doctored image. The open question, I suppose, is what really bothered Lance? I've not seen the answer to that if it's appeared anywhere. The larger question, though, is what right editors and designers have to doctor images at all.
For example, just this week we've learned that The Economist doctored its current cover, which depicts Barack Obama apparently alone at the edge of the Gulf, to remove the two people standing next to him. Moreover, they're entirely unapologetic about this, and say, in effect, that not only do they do this all the time, but also will.
I scratch my head about all this, feeling as you do that "integrity" is running a rather distant last as a concept. Best, Duncan

Duncan Christy said on 07 Jul, 2010 at 12:12 PM
Hey, Lex: Thanks for commenting. I'm reading into this that you're OK with the visual doctoring. The question I'd pitch back to you is, where are the limits? Yes, this was pretty innocuous in today's raunchy culture. But where does one draw the line? And why? Best, Duncan

Lex Evan said on 06 Jul, 2010 at 4:11 PM
As a designer, I'm supporting the creative freedom of the creative director. However, the reputation he builds by his final material will eventually make or break his career, either blacklisted or sought out by the famous.

Tim Noonan said on 02 Jul, 2010 at 2:53 AM
There is an implicit ethical standard in any activity that is just not coverable by written policies. This is especially true of responsbile journalism, which supposedly aspires to at least the journalist's understanding of accuracy and, hopefully, truth. Non-editorial journalism is also a vehicle for conveying the honest sentiments of those being covered.
It would probably not be difficult to get people to agree that clothing is an expression of the wearer, especially if it contains an outright message. Therefore, to falsify a message onto the clothes of a subject without the subject's awareness amounts to unethically and irresponsibly putting wrds in the subject's mouth. So Outside missed the standards of responsabile journlaism by a wide margin.
Lance has a right to be irked, but that's not to say that maybe he couldn;t stand to lighten up a bit as well. If he didn;t have that T-shirt, he shold probably get one.

Sharon Berry said on 27 Jun, 2010 at 5:44 AM
I agree with Geoff. I think standards are slipping. People are moving fast and skim-reading way too much. How are you supposed to know what's true and real?

Stephan Wilkinson said on 26 Jun, 2010 at 5:01 AM
We needn't hyperventilate about "modern technology" when considering this, since it has been going on since the invention of the camera. (Well, maybe that's modern technology...)

It's entirely coincidental but interesting that the woman who appeared in the iconic end-of-World-War-II photograph of the nurse and sailor, two strangers madly kissing in Times Square, just died. That photo supposedly showed two people caught up in the moment and sharing a stunning intimacy simply because the War was over.

In fact there's a lot of evidence that the photographer corralled an anonymous sailor and a pretty girl in the crowd and said to them, "Here's what I want you to do..." What the world has ever since assumed that the photo showed is perhaps no more true-to-life than Lance's shirt.

geoff hiscock said on 25 Jun, 2010 at 9:19 PM
Lance Armstrong may or may not have a sense of humour, but he is entitled to feel aggrieved when a magazine tricks up a cover photo of him that looks genuine. The disclaimer doesn't cut it; why bother to commission a photo at all if you can simply manipulate an image to suit your editorial objectives?

Will Staves said on 25 Jun, 2010 at 4:57 AM
http://boingboing.net/2009/11/17/demi-moore-is-ralph.html