They've Come to Suck the Blood out of the Constitution

by Liberty and Power

I find complaints about media bias increasingly tedious and overworked. But here, in the midst of a generally fair NYT Magazine piece on libertarian constitutionalists, the Times' photog seems to have gone out of his way to make Epstein, Greve, and Mellor look like Johnny Cash in that"I'm-Almost-Dead" video he did right before he died. I've met all three of these guys, worked briefly for one of them, and had another as a professor. I can assure you that none of them have the zombie-like pallor the Times Magazine gives them. In fact, all three are very lively, happy guys. But the photos appear designed to confirm a cartoonish preconception that anti-government intellectuals are humorless, sinister prigs. Subtle.

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Tom G. Palmer - 4/19/2005

Someone posted on my weblog the following: "we all know that the subject controls exactly how the photograph turns out. In fact, usually people being photographed for the New York Times get to choose which picture they want used, so that the most flattering and appealing picture is published!" That seems unlikely. The idea that the pictures are flattering is absurd. Granted that most people hate their photos (just ask them about the ones on their passports or drivers' licenses), these seem clearly designed to make the subjects appear unsympathetic.

David Timothy Beito - 4/18/2005

Wow. This looks like an audition tape for an Ed Wood movie. Southern newspapers used to do this kind of thing back in the 1950s when they ran sinister and scary looking photos of black civil rights activists.