The Onion peeled for using stock photo
In September 2006, The Onion’s web site used a stock photo to illustrate one of its patented fake stories about a firefighter who died in a fire.
That’s not news. They do that all the time.
What makes this news was that the firefighter in the photo — Capt. Rudy Lindia of Ottawa, Canada — wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t amused, either.
Photos.com/The Onion
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Neither was Lindia’s 82-year-old mother, who didn’t understood The Onion is a humor site or that the story — and its accompanying photo — was phony.
Vito Pilieci of The Ottawa Citizen wrote Thursday that The Onion has apologized:
“We feel really crummy about it and we apologize to the firefighter in question,” said Chet Clem, a spokesman for the website.
“But at the same time, we subscribe to a number of photo services and we have to trust that the images we buy from these photo sites are properly licensed.”
The Onion says it bought the image from Photos.com:
Pilieci reports that Capt. Lindia understood the photo was for promotional use only by the City of Ottawa, and signed a release to that effect when the photo was taken in 2002.
The Onion piece — I’m really surprised it’s still posted — writes about a fictitious fireman as if he had struggled with a cancer-like disease:
DES MOINES, IOWA—After years spent in and out of hospitals, warehouses, and office buildings consumed by fire, Lieutenant Anthony Castillo, 46, finally succumbed to the combustion he had so bravely battled during most of his adult life, sources close to the deceased hero said Monday.
Castillo, who over the years had become a symbol of courage to countless individuals faced with their own deadly blazes, passed away early Sunday morning at a suburban home, surrounded by family members, neighbors, fellow firefighters, and raging, crackling flames.
Funny stuff. Unless you know a fireman. Or unless the guy in the photo is your son.
Pilieci reports:
…Capt. Lindia said colleagues who have heard about or seen the article, which was published Sept. 12, 2006, started calling him “dead man walking” whenever he entered a room.
Other blogs have reported that Lindia says he called The Onion to complain but the folks there “found it hilarious.”
That probably didn’t help.