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AP crops out Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate in photo with Greta Thunberg, Nakate notices her omission and speaks out

Deleted member 3812

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Oct 25, 2017
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Buzzfeed News and The Hill reports on a Ugandan climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, who went viral after she noticed an AP picture where she was completely cropped out of the picture, she is now speaking out about this omission and the AP only issued an apology after people expressed outrage over the AP cropping her out of the picture:



Original AP picture with Nakate cropped out:

sub-buzz-576-1580480922-1.jpg


"Corrected" AP picture that includes Nakate (From left: Vanessa Nakate, Luisa Neubauer, Greta Thunberg, Isabelle Axelsson, and Loukina Tille in the differently cropped photos posted by the AP):

sub-buzz-1711-1580480972-1.jpg








The Hill article:

Story at a glance

  • Vanessa Nakate was cropped out of a photo of young climate activists protesting in Davos as the only non-white person in the image.
  • The Associated Press has since issued an apology for the cropped image.
  • Nakate is using the incident to raise awareness of how climate change is hurting African countries.

At 23 years old, Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate takes Fridays off from working at her father's shop to strike.

She was inspired by Greta Thunberg's strike outside the Swedish parliament in 2018, Nakate told BuzzFeed News, and has been striking since January 2019, joining the global #FridaysForFuture movement. She founded the Rise Up Movement, which has representatives in 10 African countries, and attended the UN Climate Action Summit and Youth Summit in New York in September 2018.

But it wasn't until she was cropped out of a photo of a group of young environmental advocates at the World Economic Forum in Davos that her name began appearing in headlines. Nakate was the only non-white activist in the photo, and when she saw the cropped image, she said in an emotional video on Twitter that she understood the definition of racism for the first time.

"Does that mean that I have no value as an African activist or the people from Africa don't have any value at all?" she asked.

The Associated Press changed the image after Nakate first noticed the crop without explanation.

Later, the agency offered an apology.

"My hope is that we can learn from this and be a better news organization going forward," Sally Buzbee, the AP's executive editor and senior vice president, said. "I realize I need to make clear from the very top, from me, that diversity and inclusion needs to be one of our highest priorities."

The next Friday, Nakate participated in a press conference along with Thunberg, who came to her defense.

"It's quite obvious I get a certain kind of media attention. If I say something, it turns into a headline. Of course, that is not the case for pretty much all other climate activists, especially from the global south, unfortunately," Thunberg said, adding that she wanted to share her platform with African activists and scientists.
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lobdale

lobdale

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Oct 25, 2017
1,990
I can get why they might have thought to do it from a composition perspective (the right four seem to be posed/bunched up much closer) but what a dumb move.
 
Volimar

Volimar

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Oct 25, 2017
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I hate apologies where they don't offer the reasoning for why it was done in the first place. I mean I think we know, but still.
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

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Oct 25, 2017
20,459
lobdale said:
I can get why they might have thought to do it from a composition perspective (the right four seem to be posed/bunched up much closer) but what a dumb move.
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Yup. For horizontal weight there's a reasonable case for cropping but you crop out trees, photographers, irrelevant bystanders. If you have to crop a relevant member of the group to achieve that then you use a different shot. And that's even if you somehow ignore race in your calculation.

mans it's the AP. That means a half dozen people at least were involved in the editorial process and not one of them thought "hmmm maybe this might look bad..."
 
Pepito

Pepito

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Dec 11, 2017
2,312
And when they made the correction, they didn't even use her name in the tweet.

 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

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Oct 25, 2017
54,152
These chickenshit apologies, like it wasn't a mistake. For whatever reason (i can think of a few) someone intentionally cropped an entire person out of that picture. This wasn't an accident. Stop treating it as such. I'd honestly prefer they not say anything if they are going to be cowards about it. Get fucking real for once.
 
Armaros

Armaros

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Oct 25, 2017
4,901
You even see her arm in the original, so you 100% know someone is cropped out. There is literally no way it was not deliberate. (a fifth person is standing there, lets just removed them)
 
Haint

Haint

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Oct 14, 2018
1,361
The original shot is obviously very poorly framed and they clearly wanted Thunberg to be the focus of the image. The optics look terrible, but if one of the secondary white girls had been in Vanessa's spot she would have been cropped as well.
 
SpitztheGreat

SpitztheGreat

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May 16, 2019
2,877
Why is it so difficult for professional organizations to NOT fuck up this badly. Like, you had to go out of your way to fuck this one up.
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

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Oct 27, 2017
27,234
Ravensmash said:
I'm not sure I get this, the article linked names Vanessa in the second line.

Unless it's because only Greta was named in the headline?

Which makes sense, because the name of a prominent individual is more powerful than simply naming a collective?
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Because we live in an age where we can see everyone else fucking up by marginalizing and minimizing a person of color, so we should probably avoid doing such a thing in our headlines, too.

It's worse for BBC because they had a warning and went ahead and did it anyway.
 
Raguel

Raguel

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Oct 28, 2017
2,275
Ravensmash said:
I'm not sure I get this, the article linked names Vanessa in the second line.

Unless it's because only Greta was named in the headline?

Which makes sense, because the name of a prominent individual is more powerful than simply naming a collective?
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Dude. Don't let this be the hill you die on. Be better than this.
 

Ravensmash

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Oct 25, 2017
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User Banned (1 month): trolling, dismissing concerns around racism
TheMadTitan said:
Because we live in an age where we can see everyone else fucking up by marginalizing and minimizing a person of color, so we should probably avoid doing such a thing in our headlines, too.

It's worse for BBC because they had a warning and went ahead and did it anyway.
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But the justification is that Greta is a prominent and widely known figure - arguably the face of the climate activism movement.

A headline is curated to attract - and her name being front and centre drives more attention than - and i don't mean this negatively - someone who is more unknown.


Raguel said:
Dude. Don't let this be the hill you die on. Be better than this.
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I said I wasn't sure I got it, so I'm open to the views of others.

Not sure why you think there's some agenda behind my post?
 
T'Chakku

T'Chakku

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Oct 25, 2017
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Ravensmash said:
I'm not sure I get this, the article linked names Vanessa in the second line.

Unless it's because only Greta was named in the headline?

Which makes sense, because the name of a prominent individual is more powerful than simply naming a collective?
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Haint said:
The original shot is obviously very poorly framed and they clearly wanted Thunberg to be the focus of the image. The optics look terrible, but if one of the secondary white girls had been in Vanessa's spot she would have been cropped as well.
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Y'all are so good at coming up with excuses for these kinds of things. As long as it's not super-in-your-face obvious, you'll find ways to downplay or deny.
Everytime.
 
Raguel

Raguel

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
2,275
Ravensmash said:
But the justification is that Greta is a prominent and widely known figure - arguably the face of the climate activism movement.

A headline is curated to attract - and her name being front and centre drives more attention than - and i don't mean this negatively - someone who is more unknown.




I said I wasn't sure I got it, so I'm open to the views of others.

Not sure why you think there's some agenda behind my post?
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I'll take your ignorance in good faith. Here is the point of contention: it's ok to use Greta as a headliner. But when talking about Africa and climate change, it doesn't look good to have a white girl alone in the headlines. This basically what minorities and nakate is harping on: we are being pushed aside even in matters that concern us directly.
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,035
Hate these non apologies which essentially amount to 'sorry we got caught'. They don't acknowledge why they did what they did, they don't say why it was wrong and nobody gets reprimanded. You just get an 'apology' which in this case basically says we're sorry you got upset.
 
faceless

faceless

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Oct 25, 2017
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Ravensmash said:
But the justification is that Greta is a prominent and widely known figure - arguably the face of the climate activism movement.

A headline is curated to attract - and her name being front and centre drives more attention than - and i don't mean this negatively - someone who is more unknown.

I said I wasn't sure I got it, so I'm open to the views of others.

Not sure why you think there's some agenda behind my post?
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and that's exactly how to stay unknown.

get marginalized while the white savior is pushed solo.
 

Ravensmash

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,797
T'Chakku said:
Y'all are so good at coming up with excuses for these kinds of things. As long as it's not super-in-your-face obvious, you'll find ways to downplay or deny.
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It wasn't super-in-my-face obvious, and I stated that in my post for that reason?

Raguel said:
I'll take your ignorance in good faith. Here is the point of contention: it's ok to use Greta as a headliner. But when talking about Africa and climate change, it doesn't look good to have a white girl alone in the headlines. This basically what minorities and nakate is harping on: we are being pushed aside even in matters that concern us directly.
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And I thank you for that.

And yes, that's a fair point. Fair to say that Greta is a big enough name that including Vanessa in the headline wouldn't detract anything, and would highlight the work of someone who's gone more unnoticed.
 
Dultimate

Dultimate

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Oct 27, 2017
652
Poorly framed my ass. It's the picture they chose to go with SO they can crop out Vanessa. Do you think it's the only picture available to the AP of this group?
We're not using film anymore. There's hundreds of pictures to choose from and that's ignoring the fact that a photographer for the AP should know how to frame a damn photo.
 

Deleted member 16876

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
39,148
Why am I not suprised?

Of course they would crop people of colour just to put white saviors in the spotlight...

Even if they want to go with the excuse that Gretta is more popular (cause she is), they should atleast put Vanessa in the title as well cause she is an equal on the issue.
 
Watchtower

Watchtower

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Oct 27, 2017
11,650
Ravensmash said:
But the justification is that Greta is a prominent and widely known figure - arguably the face of the climate activism movement.

A headline is curated to attract - and her name being front and centre drives more attention than - and i don't mean this negatively - someone who is more unknown.
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And by not using her name Nakate would keep being more unknown. Hell, ensuring that Thunberg's name is front and center only ensures that she is attributed to everything, only making Nakate more unknown.
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,234
Ravensmash said:
And yes, that's a fair point. Fair to say that Greta is a big enough name that including Vanessa in the headline wouldn't detract anything, and would highlight the work of someone who's gone more unnoticed.
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Exactly that, and that's important because it shows the everyday people that they have those in their own communities putting in work. That makes people inspired to take up arms. That helps separate, distant communities come together, pull resources, and collaborate instead of all essentially doing the same thing and stagnating when they hit brick walls others figured out already.

Highlighting Greta and Greta only, even outside of the poor race optics, isn't doing anything to show off how far reaching the cooperation is, which is bad for cooperation.
 
Glasfrut

Glasfrut

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Oct 27, 2017
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Ravensmash said:
But the justification is that Greta is a prominent and widely known figure - arguably the face of the climate activism movement
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So what? On one level, you're erasing other voices, and on another, you're playing right into that bullshit that movements/activism like this has to come from outside the continent.
 
Haint

Haint

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Oct 14, 2018
1,361
T'Chakku said:
Y'all are so good at coming up with excuses for these kinds of things. As long as it's not super-in-your-face obvious, you'll find ways to downplay or deny.
Everytime.
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The unmodified picture is objectively terrible, they would have cropped literally anyone out of Vanessa's spot. Their fuck up wasn't the cropping, it's that they didn't consider how this might make Vanessa and other African people feel and instead opt to use a different picture entirely (which included her). The idea that groups of journalists, editors, and photographer's at the associated press are sitting around scheming up ways to remove black people from pictures is dangerously irrational. The AP is consciously inclusive, there's nothing to gain from doing this.
 
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TheMango55

TheMango55

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Nov 1, 2017
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When I heard the headline I was like "Well it's probably a photo of the two of them and they just needed Greta for an article."

But no, it's like a half dozen people and they only crop out the black girl.
 
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