The image released Sunday of Princess Kate Middleton smiling, surrounded by her loving children on Mother’s Day, only had one job: to cement in the global hive mind the simple message that all was well in Britain’s royal family.
Instead, a sloppy photoshopping error on Princess Charlotte’s hand, combined with Kate’s decision not to wear her wedding band in the picture, plunged the British royal family into a new maelstrom of controversy Sunday.
Less than 12 hours after the image was issued on social media and via news agencies, four of the biggest global news and picture agencies that the royals use to circulate pictures—The Associated Press (AP) Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images—issued urgent advisories: the picture should be removed immediately and the story “killed.”
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The Associated Press wrote that the reason was “because at closer inspection, it appeared the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet AP’s photo standards. The photo shows an inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte's left hand.”
For prominent news and picture agencies to be accusing the British royal family of using them to serve up fake news probably marks a new low in the royals’ relationship with the media.
The news was greeted with a wall of silence by Prince William and Kate’s press team on Sunday night, with no comment being made in response to queries from The Daily Beast and other media.
The news and picture agencies had little choice but to disown the pictures and throw the palace under a bus—they stand or fall by their reputation for delivering accurate content to media organizations. They have strict rules about the photoshopping of images tagged as news. The idea that they may have colluded with the royals to disseminate dodgy images would harm their all-important credibility.
Although the palace had not commented by Sunday evening, social media conspiracy theories—and outright mockery—went into overdrive.
The online detectives had already been poring all day over some other mysteries in the picture, allegedly taken by William in Windsor last week; why a tree in the background appeared in full leaf in March—and why Kate was not wearing her wedding ring in the photograph.
The inadequate explanation proffered by some Kate-sympathetic writers included that Kate may have been told to remove the ring for her surgery seven weeks ago and not gotten around to putting it back on, or that her fingers were swollen, or perhaps very thin after the surgery.
The royals, however, know how to take and stage images—and so likely would have been aware that the lack of a wedding ring would be commented upon, or significance analyzed.
Kate is not due back on public engagements until Easter, which falls on March 31 this year.
