By: Hannah Wolfson, AP Business Writer (AP) He's a rebel without a cause. And in a recent edition of the
Deseret News, film icon James Dean was also a rebel without a cigarette.
The Salt Lake newspaper, owned by the Mormon church, digitally altered Dean's photograph to remove the cigarette frequently seen dangling from his lips.
The manipulation violated newspaper policy against changing photographs, said managing editor Rick Hall. The paper ran a clarification in Thursday's edition.
"It was a mistake the way it happened," Hall said. "It's one of those things you hate to 'fess up to."
The picture, which fills nearly a quarter of the front page of last Friday's Weekend section, accompanied a story on a television movie about Dean's life. Hall said he and editor John Hughes were concerned that the cigarette projecting from Dean's mouth into the story's text was too striking a focal point.
Most of the paper's 66,000 subscribers are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who eschew tobacco use. "We have no apologies about not wanting to have the cigarette dominate the page, frankly less because of ownership than general portrayal of tobacco," Hall said.
The paper does not accept tobacco advertising.
Hall and Hughes wanted the staff to find a new, tobacco-free photo but because of a misunderstanding or tight deadline pressures, the photo was digitally altered.
"Our policy is very firm. We don't mess around with the content of pictures, and this went against that. There's no two ways around that," Hall said.
Desert News:
http://www.deseretnews.comNational Press Photographers Association:
http://www.nppa.org
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