Nine News has issued an apology to Georgie Purcell, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council and the Animal Justice Party, following her objections to a modified photograph used in a news story.
The issue come to attention after Ms. Purcell used social media to point out alterations to her appearance in the image.
Ms. Purcell expressed her dismay, noting, “Having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card.” She highlighted that the changes included an enlargement of her breasts and a more revealing outfit, diverging from the original photo.
Ms. Purcell’s original image appears to have been first published in the Bendigo Advertiser, a regional Victorian newspaper. The doctored image was broadcast on a Monday, showing a cropped section of Ms. Purcell’s dress and exposing part of her stomach.
Hugh Nailon, the Director of Nine News Melbourne, responded to the criticism explaining that the graphic department sourced an online image of Ms. Purcell for their story on duck hunting. In a statement to TV Blackbox he noted,
“I would like to sincerely apologise to Georgie Purcell for a graphic error that occurred in last night’s bulletin.
Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting. As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs.
During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original.
This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly.”
TV Blackbox understands the original image was manipulated using Adobe Firefly Artificial Intelligence Tool. Newsrooms globally are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence products, including Chat GPT and AI Image Generation Software.
While the products are capable of creating significant amounts of content quickly and at low cost, the products remain experimental with the artificial intelligence prone to ‘hallucinations’ and creating additional unintended content.
Ms. Purcell shared her concerns with news.com.au, highlighting the unique challenges faced by women in the public eye,
“Unfortunately, the difference for women is that they also have to deal with the constant sexualisation and objectification that comes with having images leaked, distorted and AI generated,”
“Let’s be clear – this is not something that happens to my male colleagues. The message this sends to young women and girls across Victoria is that even at the top of your field, your body is always up for grabs.”
Pretty disgusting that people still alter pix like this and think nothing of it (like nobody’s gonna notice?). Like casual racism, casual sexism is just as abhorrent and just as difficult to stamp out. I use Adobe Photoshop all the time in the cause of my work and blaming “automation” for the sexual enhancement of the photo is a rubbish answer, the same as a poor worker blaming tools. Like most media cowards, they can’t accept that sexualising the photo was a deliberate act on their part. So, newsrooms still think sexual innuendo is harmless fun, but can’t admit it publicly? Sexist, lazy and unable to tell the truth. Sadly, that’s still how things operate in TV news.