[Update No. 2: Fox News is reporting that The Atlantic Monthly editor is addressing this situation --

The editor of The Atlantic Monthly said Monday he is sending a letter of apology to John McCain after a woman the magazine hired to photograph the Republican presidential nominee posted manipulated pictures from the photo shoot on her Web site.

Editor James Bennet said Greenberg behaved improperly and will not be paid for the session. He said the magazine is also considering a lawsuit.

Well, it’s a start . . .]

[Update: Over at Michelle Malkin's blog there is a strong reaction to The Atlantic's statement that they were "blindsided" by Greenberg's actions. As Michelle states in The Atlantic should have Googled Jill Greenberg before hiring her:

Jill Greenberg disgraced her profession well before The Atlantic hired her.

A simple Google search would have turned up my post and posts by many professional photographers disgusted by what she did in 2004 and put on exhibit in 2006. This woman deliberately terrorized children, stripped them, ordered parents to “step out of the studio for a couple minutes” in concerted attempts to make children cry who were not cooperating, and then captioned the photos of the children with anti-Bush slogans.

Lots more over there -- be sure and check it out! -- end update]

Over at American Journal Digest Vanderleun is taking The Atlantic apart for it’s decision to hire committed anti-Bush photographer Jill Greenburg to shoot its cover image of John McCain. You should go there to see the actual image used for the mag, and also for the ones that the photographer didn’t deliver to them, but decided to manipulate in the most shocking, distasteful, disrespectful and absolutely disgusting manner possible. Using an image shot for a major national magazine to show a monkey defecating on the head of the GOP presidential candidate is beyond moronic, beyond childish — it’s totally unprofessional. Bad enough if she had done these Photoshops to share among whatever friends she has, but she shows a careless disregard for common decency by posting them on her website. If you decide to follow that link, then just hit refresh over and over to see all the images she has in rotation for her opener and you’ll get to the McCain-bashing images. Here’s Vanderleun rhetorically ripping Greenberg apart:

So what we see here is a candidate for President showing up at a photo-session for a cover shot for a magazine he knows is not going to give him an Obama-pass, but still making time for it. Waiting for him is the contracted representative of that magazine, Jill Greenberg, who has literally set a trap for him and then lures him into it. She mocks the McCain staff for not being “very sophisticated” about lighting when, in truth, the lighting used for a professional photo session is very complicated. There are umbrella lights, fill spots, and a raft of others being used at any given time.

I imagine that Ms. Greenberg was in full charm mode with Senator McCain at the same time she was executing her little partisan plot. Indeed, I am certain she was nothing other than sweetness and light to him. What she was doing was quite another thing, a vile thing. Simply put, it was betrayal for a cheap political frisson for her.

Then Greenberg extended the betrayal to her Client, The Atlantic. She either did not deliver all the images of the shoot to the client or she began to manipulate them for her own uses as seen above. In this digital age, she probably ftp’d the images to The Atlantic, kept the originals on her own system, and then made the cheap and disgusting photoshops seen above.

I’m not sure how the art director of The Atlantic, Jason Treat, feels about this, even though I have written him requesting a reply. Still, during the years that I hired and worked with illustrative photographers, product photographers, news photographers, and fashion photographers in London and New York City, my art directors and myself always got all the film to review. Depending on the contract, the film would or would not go back to the photographer. When digital came it, it was always understood that the out-takes or images we commissioned and paid for would be kept confidential by the photographer — as specified in the rights agreement. At the very least, we would have exclusive use of them for a considerable period of time.

Guess she forgot to tell McCain that this
horror-pic lighting would be used and that
for her amusement and public Internet display
she would desecrate the images afterward.One thing I do know is that if I, or any other editor or art director, ever caught a photographer using images held back for secondary profit outside of the contract, or using images in a way that would undercut our publication, we would pull that photographer’s card out of the assignment rolodex. Not only that we would make it out business to tell other editors and art directors at other publications that such a photographer was never to be trusted again.

Ms. Greenberg may well have her opinions and is welcome to them. But to use the offices, reputation, and money of The Atlantic Monthly to fool and ridicule a United States Senator and candidate for President goes well beyond unprofessional conduct and into the area of fraud.

Just to show you what kind of courage this Ms. Greenberg has, Vanderleun provides this quote:

Elsewhere in the PDN article, Ms. Greenberg giggles, “I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president.” Again we see the thin slime that passes for courage and conviction among those of Ms. Greenberg’s ilk — “I’d like to be edgy and transgressive, I just don’t want there to be any consequences for me.”

Not to worry Jill — only the most jaded hard-Left mags will hire you now.

And we thought that after Bush they, the Left, couldn’t hate any harder . . . Boy, were we ever wrong.

Technorati Tags: James Bennet, Jill Greenburg, John McCain

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Here Comes McCain, Media Bias, Media Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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