A rash of ‘offensive’ photos
Three ‘offensive’ photos have come to our attention this week. The first two, you may have seen mentioned at Romenesko or at Sportsdesigner.
You all saw this one, right? It’s from the student paper at Ohio State, which wanted to make the point that sure, the football team lost the BCS championship game on Jan. 7. But it could have been a lot worse, right? There are actual disasters out there in the world.
The problem, of course, is that their point backfired when a lot of readers reportedly thought the editors were comparing that disaster of a game with 9/11.
Not so, the editors claimed. That’s not a photo of 9/11 — instead, that’s a photo of a fire in South Korea.
Wanna see a real disaster? Check out the comments attached to that story.
—
The previous Sunday, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., ran this photo of two Louisville University basketball players celebrating.
The problem? It looked as if the two players were kissing. Which, Courier-Journal public editor Pam Platt wrote Sunday, made some readers uncomfortable.
A lot of readers uncomfortable, apparently, judging by the comments on her column.
Hey, it could be worse. The players could be celebrating a loss by Ohio State.
—
Finally, a friend sent us this St. Petersburg Times story about a photo that moved Sunday on the AP wire that shows a publicity stunt at a big car show in Detroit. Chrysler brought in a bunch of cattle to help advertise their 2009 Dodge Ram truck.
Associated Press
—
Just as Chrysler president Jim Press started to speak, however, one of the steers decided to get frisky with one of the cows. Which is what you’re seeing in the photo.
But hey, it could be worse. The steer could have gotten all hot and bothered by that photo in The Courier-Journal.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Looks to me like that steer just wanted a better view of that herd of people. Can’t blame him for that.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I’m not offended. In fact, I occasionally try to offend people with my daily comic. Any press is good press, right? And we’re obviously giving this more attention instead of just putting it in the bottom of the birdcage. It could be worse.