The baying pack of media hounds sniffing for scandal in a photo of Kate, Princess of Wales, has been rebuked by evangelist Franklin Graham.
On Sunday, Kensington Palace released a photo of Princess Kate and her children. Because it was the first photo released since abdominal surgery in January has kept the princess from the public eye, every pixel and bit of metadata was thoroughly scrutinized.
The result? The media declared the photo unfit, saying it had been manipulated beyond their standards. Although the princess said her beginner’s efforts at photoshopping images were to blame, the excuse threw gasoline on the media flame.
Writing on his Facebook page, Graham said enough was enough.
“With all the issues going on in the world — ships being sunk off the coast of Yemen, conflict continuing in Ukraine, missiles flying into Israel and over 100 hostages still being held, Haiti exploding, and so much more — the media can’t stop talking about Kate Middleton’s Mother’s Day photo possibly being retouched,” he wrote.
“What’s the big deal? The photos of every celebrity in Hollywood are retouched — this isn’t news,” he wrote.
“Leave the lady alone. She has nothing to apologize for,” he wrote.
Others have said the outrage was misplaced.
Do you agree with Franklin Graham?
“She owned up to it,” Dickie Arbiter, a former representative for Queen Elizabeth said, according to The Washington Post.
He said Princess Kate’s acceptance of blame was “more than the photo agencies did. … It was a genuine mistake that was perpetuated by photo agencies who didn’t check. They put the picture out and only killed it hours later.”
Something all shills have failed mentioned when it comes to the photo of Kate
Why is the AP suddenly admitting to doctored photos bc they are concerned about journalistic integrity?
They chucked that out long ago and have passed doctored photos and fake news for years.
— unspinthespinagain (@unspinthespina1) March 11, 2024
One commentator said that, despite social media buzz that AI may have generated the picture, that is not likely, according to NBC.
“I think it is unlikely that this is anything more than a relatively minor photo manipulation,” Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who investigates digital manipulation and misinformation, said. “There is no evidence that this image is entirely AI-generated,” he said.
“I think most likely it is either some bad Photoshop to, for example, remove a stain on the sweater, or is the result of on-camera photo compositing that combines multiple photos together to get a photo where everyone is smiling,” he said.
Media is furious because Kate takes her own family pictures and doesn’t photoshop them like a pro. Hypocrites
— Jackie Lambe (@lambe_jackie) March 11, 2024
As the controversy about the image grew, Page Six reported that a source close to Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Duchess of Sussex, told it: “If Harry and Meghan had ever encountered the same issue they would have been annihilated. The same rules do not apply to both couples.”
“This isn’t a mistake that Meghan would ever make … she has a keen eye and freakish attention to detail,” Page Six reported that it was told.
Newsweek later reported that it was told by a representative of the couple’s Archewell Foundation that “With respect to Page Six, that did not come from us.”
