Newsweek Changes Crediting Policy Following Cover Flap

In the wake of controversy over a manipulated cover photo of Martha Stewart in early March, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker apologized and announced a new policy for cover art credits.

Newsweek ran what appeared to be a portrait of the media mogul cum felon on its cover, but the image was actually a digital composite that merged an image of Stewart's head onto a model's body. Media critics and readers alike felt that the composite image looking deceptively real.

Whitaker called the cover image "just dumb and badly executed," adding that the magazine did not intend to mislead readers.

"I think this was a case where I did not exercise enough judgment about whether this was appropriate for a news magazine, for our kind of news magazine, and I take responsibility for that," Whitaker says. "We're not going to make this particular mistake again."

Beginning with the March 14 issue, Whitaker instituted a new policy requiring bylines for cover photos and illustrations to appear directly on the cover. Standard industry practice is to credit photos on the table of contents.

Whitaker says the decision resulted from conversations with his creative staff.

"We credit photos directly on the page with the photo everywhere else in the magazine, and there's no reason readers shouldn't be able to immediately see where a photograph on the cover came from," Whitaker says.

Whitaker says the magazine's staffers had discussed whether or not to label the Stewart photo illustration on the cover prior to publication, but ultimately decided the step lacked precedent. In the end, they labeled it on the table of contents page.

The ensuing controversy was the latest in a long string of embarrassments to hit a major American magazine over the use of digitally manipulated images in the last few years.

When asked if he thought other magazines should adopt similar procedures, Whitaker said, "We're not speaking for anybody else. We're taking this step and we'll see if the photographic community and the ethics police think it's appropriate for other people to do."

Kelly McBride, the ethics group leader at the journalism think tank the Poynter Institute, applauds Newsweek's step toward transparency but says magazines can do more to inform their readers.

"In addition to labeling [photo illustrations], you'll do a greater service to readers if you give them a definition to the label," McBride says. "These are words we use all the time in the journalism world but they might not be clear to readers."