Let’s say you’re a newspaper columnist. You write a nice piece about Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas. You are supporting her in the face of all the criticism she has received online recently. It’s your newspaper’s cover story, and in the piece is a picture of Douglas, naturally. Only it isn’t Gabby Douglas. It’s her teammate Simone Biles. This is a nightmare that was a reality for one writer.
Ronnie Polaneczky writes for Philadelphia Daily News. She wrote a piece called “She Can Vault Over the Vitriol” which was written directly to Douglas, the gold medal winning gymnast. Through no fault of Polaneczky’s, a photo of Biles, who is having a great Olympics but is decidedly not Douglas, was used. To add insult to injury, the caption read, “Gabby Douglas: Olympic gold medalist, need we say more?” Yes, Philadelphia Daily News. Please say more.
What makes this particularly awkward and thorny is that Biles and Douglas really don’t look like each other at all, save for the fact they are both black. “It makes you want to bash your head against a wall,” said Polaneczky, “I’m mortified.” Obviously, the optics on this are bad, even if it is a largely harmless mistake. It’s never a good thing to accidentally use the photo of the wrong person in an article, especially in a newspaper where it can’t be changed. Both Biles and Douglas are worthy of being written about. Just be sure to remember who is who.
(Via NBC Chicago)