One of the world’s largest information companies has claimed that Kensington Palace is now not a “trusted source” after the furor over Kate Middleton‘s doctored Mother’s Day picture.
Phil Chetwynd, international information director of Agence France-Presse (AFP), advised BBC Radio 4’s Media Show that the company has reviewed its relationship with the Prince and Princess of Wales and can rigorously examine future image handouts from the royals.
Such an announcement would have been unthinkable only a few days in the past, however Chetwynd stated the picture raised “major issues” for AFP. He admitted that the company ought to by no means have verified its use as a result of it “violated our guidelines.”
Middleton has apologized for “confusion” over the picture, which she attributed to an “experiment with editing.” Kensington Palace has not commented additional and has declined to publish the unique picture, which was purportedly taken by Prince William this 12 months.
The picture was principally shared to mark Mother’s Day within the UK, however it’s broadly accepted that the picture served a twin objective of addressing wild social media hypothesis about Middleton’s well being and whereabouts following her stomach surgical procedure in January.
Asked by Media Show presenter Ros Atkins if Kensington Palace is a trusted supply, Chetwynd replied: “No, absolutely not. Like with anything, when you’re let down by a source the bar is raised … We sent out notes to all our teams at the moment to be absolutely super more vigilant about the content coming across our desk — even from what we would call trusted sources.”
Chetwynd revealed that the most important information companies, together with Associated Press and Reuters, spoke earlier than issuing notices to “kill” the image on Sunday. He stated Kensington Palace was requested if it could present the unique, however the companies didn’t obtain a reply and the picture was pulled.
Chetwynd stated it’s uncommon for media companies to demand that images be taken out of circulation. “To kill something on the basis of manipulation [is rare. We do it] once a year maybe, I hope less. The previous kills we’ve had have been from the North Korean news agency or the Iranian news agency,” he defined.
Chetwynd added: “One thing that’s really important is you cannot be distorting reality for the public. There’s a question of trust. And the big issue here is one of trust, and the lack of trust and the falling trust of the general public in institutions generally and in the media. And so it’s extremely important that a photo does represent broadly the reality that it’s seen in.”