One of my students emailed me a link to a slideshow featuring Time magazine’s top 10 list of doctored photos. Conspicuous in its absence is Time‘s famous distortion of the OJ Simpson image on its June 27, 1994 cover.

Upon publication Time was criticized by minority groups for altering the photograph to make Simpson appear more “sinister.” Newsweek‘s cover photo ran unaltered, making Time‘s treatment all the more blatant. The uproar was so intense that Time immediately pulled the first cover and published a second, more accurate photo.

June 27, 1994 covers

Time magazine's second, more accurate, cover

Time also neglected to include the infamous moving pyramid image in the slideshow, published by National Geographic magazine on its February 1982 cover.

February 1982 issue of National Geographic magazine

Time, however, had no problem including the covers of TV Guide and Newsweek in the slideshow for similar, yet less egregious, transgressions. I think Time is selling itself short because the OJ cover is certainly in my, and most photojournalists’, top five.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 11:41 am and is filed under Journalism, Media, Photojournalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.