On "Don't Say Gay"

(Posted 2/2;Click the conversation for update)

Both photos are of Rep. Stacey Campfield, who as the Flyer notes put forth a bill to ban teachers from discussing homosexuality. However, some commenters have charged the Flyer with altering the original photo (the "Tax 'n' Spend" one).

Blogger Terry Frank calls Bianca Phillips "dishonest" and "unethical." But is Phillips really the one to blame? I mean, the Flyer has a relatively small staff and sometimes reporters take their own pictures. Do they personally photoshop them too?

In any event, the alteration is over-the-top editorializing. Campfield is embarassing enough on his own.

I've asked Editor Bruce VanWyngarden for some insight. We'll post his reply when we receive it.

UPDATED: Bruce VanWyngarden replied:

The photo was originally photo-shopped by this blogger: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_09_25_patriotboy_archive.html
(scroll down). We’ve posted photo-shopped pics on several occasions, all with (we hope) obvious humorous intent, including one of Trent Lott in a dashiki. Perhaps in this case we should have explained that it was photo-shopped. Apparently it wasn’t obvious enough for some readers.

Bianca Phillips wrote the straight news item, which appeared in the paper this week without the photo in question. The photo was just a way to have fun with the story online. Bianca had nothing to do with it.
bv

So, the photo was altered -- but not by The Flyer. Journalism lives to see another day.

Oh, earlier today on his blog, Campfield called the Flyer article "Yellow Journalism."

UPDATED: More fallout. The Memphis Liar still lives.

UPDATED: People wanted a better explanation from the Flyer about the photo. Flyer Editor Bruce VanWyngarden gives them one -- and even posted the unaltered image of Campfield with an attribution:

In this week's Flyer, Bianca Phillips wrote about a piece of legislation proposed by state representative Stacey Campfield (R-Paleolithic) that would prevent public elementary and middle schools from allowing "any instruction or materials discussing sexual orientation other than heterosexuality." (Yeah, we know, some real forward thinking going on there.)

When the Flyer posted the article online, we added what we thought was an obviously photo-shopped picture of Campfield holding a bumper sticker that read, "Confederate Values." (It should be noted that we did not photo-shop the picture; it was taken from a humorous political blog.)

We post funny pictures to accompany articles now and then, you see. We've run pictures of Trent Lott in a Dashiki, Pau Gasol in drag, and Harold Ford with a big cowboy moustache, for example, when we thought those pictures complemented the tone of an article.

Well, darned if we didn't tick ol' Stacey off. He called the Flyer office today and demanded in a very deep and serious voice that we remove the picture. Campfield contended that since the article was "serious," we shouldn't run a satirical picture with it.

Well, that's a matter of taste, not of law, but maybe he has a point. So here's what we're going to do: We'll add a note below the offending picture acknowledging that it was photo-shopped. And we'll also post the real picture (at right), which we think accurately reflects the seriousness of Mr. Campfield's status as a legislator.

You can see where we might get confused as to where "satire" ends and "serious" begins with this guy.

R-Paleolithic. Classic.