Washington Times Runs Obama Girls' Photo With Story About Murdered Chicago Kids

On Wednesday, a story featured on the Washington Times website about murdered Chicago schoolchildren was inexplicably paired with a photo of President Obama's daughters. The two girls are not mentioned in the story, and aside from having at one point been schoolchildren in Chicago have no connection to it.

As Media Matters' Eric Boehlert points out:

The Obama children, of course, are not actually mentioned in the news story. But somebody at the WashTimes thought it made perfect sense to insert the image of the underage White House occupants into a story about murdered kids in Chicago.

And no, this was not an example of an unfortunate juxtaposition, where the the Obama girls photo was actually part of another, more innocuous story and because of a layout quirk simply appeared near the murdered-kids story. Instead, the Obama girls photo was specifically selected to accompany the article.

The photo was later taken down.

Editor John Solomon told Greg Sargent technology, not a person, was to blame.

"The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story," Solomon said, acknowledging that the photo had gone up without a person seeing it. "There was no editorial decision to run it. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we pulled it down."

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Comments

[hapaglloyd]

Email the Washington Times ,express your outrage.

[stanschurman]

Do you think they care?

[NoVA forObama]

Done!

[Meah]

I called them and left a message with an editor. I told him how outraged that I was and that heads should roll.

[Indie2008]

I have worked for newspapers, and I didn't realize that a "theme enging" is what they call editors now.

[ScoutandBuckGoodDogs]

Let's remember the point of the story people. The misuse of the photo. It's not that the children are forgotten, not by me anyway...

[madatnewsmedia]

Every one knows the point of the story, but the point is this; use the pictures of the murdered children so that the world knows what happened to them. The use of the Obama girls didn't add anything to the story, other than to enrage readers.

[Veggie-Trunks]

Somebody is going to suggest violence one too many times and it's going to happen, and when it does, the entire U.S. and maybe even the world will erupt. If something happens to Obama or his family, it will not be pretty.

These news organizations need to quit suggesting things like with that monkey being shot down. How could they not possibly think people would connect that to Obama?

[groucho]

So I guess Jeanne Garafalo was right. The righties can't stand a black man in the office of the prez. They hate it so much they use his kids as pawns. Disgusting and pathetic.
So sad for all those children that did die.

[Marrymeplease]

This is a new low. How dare these fools do something like that. And don't you conservatives try to justify this by saying look how Bristal Palin was treated. I guest childrens lives only matter if they are in the womb.If they really cared about the story, why didn't they go to Chicago and meet the parents of those children, then you would had the right pictures to use, instead of pictures of the Obama girls. We need to contact that piece of rag and let them know what we think of this. I'm already looking for their phone number or e-mail address. Editor John Solomon of the Washington Times. First class creep.

[mazzetta]

if they choose an automated device that picks the pics, they deserve full responsabilty about choosing a loose trick , plus the shame for making jokes of their reader who could try to understand the relation between images and articles without being warned that pics are sorted out by an algorithm

[IKARINOKAMI]

We hammer the MSM for covering fluff. finally a newspaper runs a news story about the homicide epidemic that has been slaughtering poor and mosty dark children in chicago and untold and unprecedented numbers for any city in america. Finally the light is being shown on prehaps what is the most hearbreaking and unjust thing happening in america today, and all everyone can talk about is some dumb picture, is some conservative conspiracy. As a ADA in a large city, I am so livid right now, these children had the right to grow up, to have the same chance I did, they did not deserve to be killed in anonimity, yet all people can talk about is a silly picture, ignoring their brutal murders, making their death matter even less then thier lives did.

[Meah]

They don't care about the children killed in Chicago. They care about putting a story about them with the Obama children. This is politics at its very worst, and is actually a veiled threat. It is an outrage!

[Irish55]

You have excellent points and your post is, for the most part, well written. But you ignore the basic point. What in the world do the Obama children have to do with this story? Wouldn't it have been more dignified and appropriate to 1) use no pictures at all; or 2) use perhaps a composite picture of the families involved? The article is tragic enough - and the explanation from the Wash Times does absolutely nothing to answwer the question as to why this happened. If his explanation is true - then it is a very shabbily run newspaper; if its BS - it's even worse. And a disservice not only to the Obama's but to those murdered children and their families as well.

[coco51]

your outrage is acknowledge

[totaldisbelief]

your point is well taken but the picture is still way wrong.

[bygollymissmolly]

No one here is diminishing the horror of the story or saying that what happened to these children wasn't important.

This story is about the intentional misuse of the picture of our President's children.

[plaidsportcoat]

"The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story,"

Yikes! This could happen to you!
Curb your theme engines, ladies and gentlemen!

[kkg58]

seems like people should be doing some of these jobs that management thinks that computers can do better ...

[ladycubsfan]

So, they want to blame it on technology. What, no robots to do the proofreading? No wonder newspapers are on the way out. This one certainly deserves to be.

[boboyaya]

What do you expect from a newspaper owned by billionaire Rev. Moon who is a convicted fellon and served time in a US prison.

[ladyoftheisland]

So if a search engine was used to find a photo for a story about, oh teen pregnancy in Alaska (not a far reach, it is very, very high) and just happened to come with witha photo of, of, oh, a Pailn daughter, who thinks the right ring press - including hate radio - wouldn't be screaming from the roof tops about the hateful left wing media?

Leave the kids alone, it's shameful etc and so forth. Of ocurse they don't think it works both ways.

[hotbytes]

To those of us who know how to read, Washington Times is nothing more than a propaganda machine/outlet of the Neo-cons - just like what Fox News has always been.

Nothing worthy of listening or reading from Washington Times. It should be counted as part of a ter rorist organization called the Neo-cons.

[noelalumit]

Accident? Yeah, right. The photo editor probably had no idea that they were the Obama girls. Just black gierls--any black girls--on the street. Ur, this wouldn't have happened with the Bush duaghters or Chelsea Clinton, let me tell you.