Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Newsweek ages Princess Diana digitally

Nice typo in screen shot of Morning Joe: Princess of Whales

Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, knows that some people don’t care for her magazine’s “Diana at 50” cover photo, which digitally aged the deceased princess and stuck her next to the living Kate Middleton.

“Some people think it’s kind of spooky and ‘Should we have done it?’ and others think it’s very effective,” Brown said when asked about the response to the controversial cover on Wednesday’s “Morning Joe.” “I think it’s a very intriguin
g package to show what she’d be like today.”

The cover, which accompanies Brown’s story that imagines what Diana would have been like today, has created a large amount of debate about how appropriate it is for a magazine to use an altered image of a dead woman.

Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart called the cover “very” creepy, pointing out that it might be upsetting to her children, Prince William and Prince Harry, to see their mother like this. The Los Angeles Times is conducting a poll to ask readers whether the cover is “shocking, brilliant or just plain cheap.” So far, a majority have voted that it’s “horribly” or “somewhat” offensive.

Following the strong responses to the cover, Brown released a statement Tuesday: “We wanted to bring the memory of Diana alive in a vivid image that transcends time and reflects my piece.”

She expanded on this idea Wednesday, saying the photo was the “best way to ... communicate” the idea behind her imaginative piece. “I wanted to make her a time traveler.”

2 comments:

Froelich said...

Disgusting New Age journalism. There's not enough real news unfolding that Newsweak has to make it up?

Anonymous said...

Nice typos in your headline, too...