Thanks to loyal readers Brenda and Shana for bringing this to my attention. But I don’t see the big deal.
Naturally people were pretty confused yesterday when on the Washington Times’ website a story about dead kids ran with a picture of the Obama children. Time for the editor John Solomon to say he’s sorry or pass the blame potato:
Solomon says that no human individual paired the pic with the story, that a technological foul-up was to blame, and that the paper is tweaking its photo selection software to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story,” Solomon says, 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.”
Solomon also conceded that the automated system the paper has in place to pick photos doesn’t have a tight enough screening process, and said steps were being taken to fix that. “We regret that the technology has let us down in this case,” he said, “and are working to make sure that the [photo] matches are more relevant in the future.”
