Why Hillary's photograph was not a sight to behold for some supporters

By Barry Ginter

Appeal Editor

This is a story about perceptions or, more accurately (if June Robinson is correct), my problem with misperceptions. Let me start with the phone call on Wednesday from June, a subscriber (and now former subscriber) who lives near Topaz Lake. She was outraged by the photograph of Hillary Clinton that appeared on the front page of Wednesday's paper next to photographs of the four other prominent presidential candidates.

"It makes her look like a drug addict," she said.

I reached for the paper on my desk - this was the first I'd heard of this problem - and was bracing for the worst, perhaps an ink smudge from the press that gave her a goatee, or maybe there was food stuck in her teeth ... things that occupy the nightmares of editors.

But I didn't see any of those things and, as I continued the conversation with June, my brain was trying to make sense of this difference in perceptions.

To sum up so far:

What she saw - a picture of Hillary Clinton so grossly negative that the only explanation was that it was a personal attack by the Appeal.

"It makes her look like Obama is winning and Hillary is losing and she looks really down about it," she said.

What I saw - a picture of Hillary with a bemused expression showing her either deep in thought or listening to a question from an audience member.

I explained that I respected her view, but I had to be honest ... I did not share it.

June explained that all I had to do was look at the other candidates, all of whom were smiling and robust. It was at this point that it occurred to me there was going to be no right and no wrong in this debate ... it was purely subjective to compare the quality of a photograph of Obama with Clinton, or of the expressions they contained. So I began to explain the difficulty of comparing the photograph of Obama with a woman.

Yes, I am that stupid, and June let me know about it without hesitation.

"Oh, it's because she's a woman ..." she proceeded to say, leaving me to stumble over the explanation of what I really meant.

But I knew the damage was done (she later explained, "when you said she's a woman, that hit me so hard ... because she's a woman she deserved to look like this?") Having been married once, I knew from experience there was no recovering from the verbal misstep. I pulled out the one debate tactic that has never failed me - I shut the heck up.

Well, not really. I finished by explaining that I respected her view and apologized for the perceived slight, even though I didn't agree.

June, 76, who is a delegate for Hillary Clinton, wasn't going to let me off that easy however, and warned me to stay by the phone because she was going to have her friends call (four called that afternoon).

"Something is terribly wrong with you if you don't see it," she said of the photo. Now I was getting worried because of this new possibility that my perception of the world is so terribly flawed.

I vowed to put it to the test and set out into the newsroom with the front page in hand.

Specifically, I held the front page up and asked people, males and females, if they could guess why someone had called me to cancel their subscription. These are people quite familiar with the importance of perception and fairness when it comes to presenting any divisive subject, whether it's high school sports or politicians.

The most popular guess was the person had canceled because the headline mentioned the Democratic race before the Republican race, but another guess was that the photo of the drug bust on the page had offended someone.

When told the real reason, the response was mostly surprise. A few of the females acknowledged it was not a complimentary photo because she looked tired. Columnist Kirk Caraway, liberal and proud of it, said he never would have guessed someone would have viewed the photo as objectionable.

There was one notable exception the following day, when columnist Guy Farmer visited the newsroom. It took him about five seconds to zero in on Hillary's picture as the source of the cancellation. People like their politicians to look happy, he explained, and she was the only one of the five not smiling.

As for June, she's written a letter about our use of the photo that she intends to send along with a copy of the photo to many newspaper editors and to the Associated Press, which took the photo.

"I don't care what it costs me," she said.

Her letter says, among other things, that the picture is an example of what our media has sunk to and that it advocates for Obama while ridiculing Clinton.

So, in the end I must conclude that we could have found a better photograph of Hillary, and for that I apologize to all who were offended. We'll try to use only good pictures of Hillary and the other candidates, but because it appears I have difficulty telling good from bad, I think I'd better seek second and maybe third opinions.

• Barry Ginter is editor of the Appeal. You can reach him at 881-1221, or via e-mail at bginter@nevadaappeal.com