Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/456

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en place."

The photograph lends itself specially well to this form of deception . It may have been made at a date much earlier than

that of the paper where it appears and hence give a wrong impression ,53 or the artist may " fake" a portrait or a scene as

a reporter may fake an interview ,54 although there is a growing

intolerance of wilful deceptions of this nature.55 The general newspaper-reading public apparently has little A one-issue " blanket-sheet ” published in New York in 1847 had " an amusing mixture of bona - fide portraits of American generals and French and other foreign cuts, appropriated to do duty as delineations ofMexican life.”

French cuirassiers and Italian brigands, posing as Mexican soldiers and civilians, were mingled with the others . - Frank Weitenkampf, “ Pictorial

Documents as Illustrating American History," The History Teacher 's Mage zine, February , 1917, 8 : 48 -51. After the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 , a newspaper pub

lished a panoramic photograph of the city , " ingeniously reduced to ruin by meansofbrush -work and embellished by flames and smoke of similar origin ," but inadvertently left in place the notice that the photograph was copy righted more than a year before the fire had taken place.

The Chicago Tribune, August 2 , 1921, published a four-column photo graph sent by its Paris correspondent. It purported to represent an attack in the streets ofMoscow by Soviet leaders who turned machine guns on a

mob ofmen, women , and children demanding food .— The following day the Tribune stated that it regretted to learn that this photograph was a mis

representation ; that it had been printed in the Tribune nearly four years previously , and that it represented a street scene in Petrograd during the war.

53 This is frequently the case where photographs of individuals are used . A person suddenly becomes prominent, a recent photograph is not avail able, and one of an earlier date is used . This explains the frequent comments,

“ He is much younger than I supposed,” or “ He looks too young for the office ."

Photographs of very young men purporting to be those of Theodore Roosevelt and Charles E . Hughes were published in the Barbadoes (W . I .)

Weekly Illustrated Paper, October 14 , 1916 , accompanied by the explana tion , “ From

the present indications it appears that either Roosevelt or

vention .” — New York Tribune, November 15, 1916 .

54 This has often been done in the case of foreigners where identification is difficult for readers.

66 The press of January 7 , 1912, contained descriptions of themaking of fake photographs that represented tourists in Washington hobnobbing with

President Taft, - greeted by him at a White House reception , received by him in private audience, taken outby him for a walk , or shown through the

White House by him , - a fabrication that went on until stopped by the District Attorney . The account of the deception was copyrighted by John Elfreth Watkins. The illustrated advertisement is a frequent sinner of this type. Psychology has taught scientific advertisers how to misrepresent goods for their purpose , - a certain brand of lead pencils, for example , may be illustrated and an nounced as sold at a low rate, but the illustration does not show that they are only one-half the ordinary length o