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Public faith in the royal family has plummeted since a doctored photo of Kate Middleton smiling with her children was published on Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom on Sunday.
The snapshot showed the Princess of Wales, 42, who is still recovering from the abdominal surgery she underwent in January, and her children, Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5.
While many real photos go viral for positive reasons, this one made headlines for Photoshop mistakes.
After the photo was removed from several news agencies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, due to its obvious manipulation, the French news agency AFP stated that Kensington Palace cannot be a “reliable source” of information.
Phil Chetwynd, global news director France-Presse Agency, He recently appeared on BBC Radio 4’s “Media Show” and said the spokesperson for the Prince and Princess of Wales is “not at all” trustworthy.
The Middleton photo raised “major issues” and should not have been approved for use to begin with as it “violated” AFP rules, Chetwynd said, according to Deadline.
“As with everything, when a source disappoints you, the bar is raised,” he explained.
“We’re sending notes to all of our teams right now to be absolutely more vigilant about content coming to our desk, even from what we would call trusted sources,” Chetwynd said.
“TO kill something based on manipulation (it’s rare),” he continued, adding that the incidence decreases “maybe once a year, I hope less.”
Murder notices were sent to the media on Monday.
“Upon closer inspection, it appears the source has manipulated the image,” reads a statement from the Associated Press.
The agencies then asked the palace to provide them with the original image, but they refused to do so.
“You can’t distort reality for the public,” Chetwynd continued. “There is a question of trust. And the big problem here is that of trust, lack of trust and the decline in trust of the general public in institutions in general and in the media.”
“That is why it is extremely important that a photograph broadly represents the reality in which it is seen.”
Middleton later apologized for editing issues with the photo, which the palace said was taken by Prince William.
She wrote online on Monday: “Like many amateur photographers, I experiment with editing from time to time. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion caused by the family photograph we shared yesterday.”