Bigger breasts and more skin: This is how a local Australian politician was portrayed in a photo on a television show. After criticism, the broadcaster finds a strange explanation.
It was actually supposed to be just an ordinary television appearance for Georgie Purcell. But the sight of a photo published by the “Nine News” station in Melbourne sparked anger among the Australian local politician: “The fact that my body and my outfit were photoshopped by a media company was not on my bingo card,” complained Purcell on platform X (formerly Twitter).
Purcell had added two photos that showed the differences between the original and the edit: the television station had enlarged the 31-year-old’s breasts and shortened her top so that part of her stomach was visible. However, the broadcaster was not particularly well informed: Purcell added that her stomach was fully tattooed.
“To be clear: This is not something that happens to my male colleagues,” the politician told the British newspaper “Guardian” and spoke of the “worst day I have ever experienced.” The incident is another example of the hurdles female politicians have to overcome and how they are discriminated against.
Sender blames image editing program
The broadcaster apologized to Purcell on Tuesday and spoke of a “graphical error” – and blamed the image editing program Photoshop for it. When preparing the image, “Photoshop’s automation created an image that did not match the original,” said news director Hugh Nailon about the incident.
However, a spokesman for Photoshop manufacturer Adobe replied to the Guardian that such editing was not possible without human intervention: Photoshop does have functions that rely on artificial intelligence. “Any changes to this image would have required human intervention and approval,” said the spokesman.
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