Not So Fast: Nancy Pelosi’s Photo Fakery

So, newly-sworn-in Congresswoman, you can’t show up to be part of an historic portrait, right there on the steps of the U.S. Capitol? It’s too cold outside, you say? Your kids are straggling, you complain? You’ve got other things to do, you aver? No problem.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will just have you PhotoShopped right in, along with three other of your colleagues who just couldn’t find the time to get their picture taken.

What the heck could have possibly been going through Pelosi’s mind when she made the decision to have staff “fix” the picture of the women of the 113^th Congress assembled outside the Capitol by adding in the four members who were no-shows? As a photojournalist, this is no frivolous issue to me.

Apparently it doesn’t bother the congresswoman from California at all. As quoted in Huffington Post, Pelosi endorsed the bit of photo-fakery: ”It was an accurate historical record of who the Democratic women of Congress are…It also is an accurate record that it was freezing cold and our members had been waiting a long time for everyone to arrive and … had to get back into the building to greet constituents, family members, to get ready to go to the floor. It wasn’t like they had the rest of the day to stand there.”

Of course this doesn’t rise to the level of outrageous—with so many other really serious issues facing  Congress, that would be too strong a term—but it is nonetheless disappointing and journalistically unethical.

Effox, a HuffPost community moderator, reflecting the view of many of the story’s critics, said, “There are OFFICIALLY 61 Democratic Congresswomen and the photo reflects that. Who cares if they weren’t there at the exact moment the picture was taken – how does that change anything? It doesn’t, and any complaints over it are just petty and pathetic.”

Well then, call me petty, but this is not photo shoot for Vogue or a centerfold for Playboy, where airbrushing, photoshopping and other image-enhancements or deletions are commonplace.

But this isn’t Pelosi’s responsibility alone. For the picture to appear as it does with all 61 female House members, the four missing representatives had to agree, someone on Pelosi’s staff had to make it happen, whoever did the photoshopping took a big part, and then everyone involved in releasing and running the picture played along.

ABC’s John Parkinson was there as the photo shoot took place, spotting Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.)  “exiting the House carriage entrance beneath the House steps moments after the picture ended. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Yvette Clarke of New York also were late. Rather than leave them out,” Parkinson explained, “Pelosi’s press office decided to add them to an updated version to distribute so that photo editors covering Congress would have a full class photo.”

Oh, so the photoshopping was just a service to editors? Well, good editors don’t want that kind of help.

Ron Sachs, president of the White House News Photographers Association, said Friday in a statement to TODAY.com, ”Today’s ‘doctored’ photo is not a true representation of the moment that happened yesterday, which brings into question the integrity of photos released by the government.”

Whether you’re taking people out of pictures—as the Soviet government used to do when leaders fell out of favor—or deciding to add a few faces to a group shot, changing an image of this importance plays with history in an inexcusable way. I may be petty, but this picture is pathetic.