I chose this image of Katie Couric being slimmed down in a photo for reuse. I chose it because while it seems overdone to comment on the obscenity of digitally altered photographs in magazines and the like for advertisements, it's on an entirely new level of indecency to alter an image that should be representing truth. We now assume that advertisements don't always display fact, but should we have to also assume that news sources won't express reality? The first image was released in May 2006 by CBS and then the doctored image was found in the September 2006 issue of Watch magazine, which is owned by CBS. It was altered in a way to make Couric appear thinner than she normally is. There isn't a clear reason why it was altered, but I suppose it was to make her more appealing. It may not seem like a harmful manipulation, but imagine being the person whose picture is changed to make you look a certain way. It's basically telling her that she's not good enough. If all news anchors and journalists were slimmed down for the camera, it would tell the world that you have to have a perfect body to have this type of career.
I chose this video because it shows the subtle manipulations that make a big difference in the viewer's perception of the image. Its message comes at the end: "girls are always complaining about how they want to look like the people on magazine covers, but no one looks like that." The fact that not even the people these images are of actually look the same as in the photo should show people that nobody is perfect and no one should expect perfection.
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