OMG: The Telegraph’s Deepika Moment

The Telegraph publishes a nude leaked picture of Jennifer Lawrence. Is the TOIsation of newspapers complete?

WrittenBy:Manisha Pande
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Tabloids are not exactly the embodiment of classy journalism. Even so, given that they are part of the newspaper ecosystem, you would expect them to at least not be downright crass. But perhaps editors atT2, a 20-page tabloid that comes with The Telegraph every weekday in Kolkata, don’t think so.

The tabloid, according to The Telegraph’s facebook page carries stories on fashion, food, films, television, arts, culture and “everything young”. We don’t know about everything young, but a T2 edition on Tuesday, October 7, did carry a photo that is everything the law doesn’t permit.

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Along with an interview of Keith Richards, musician and member of the English rock band The Rolling Stones, T2 carried one of the nude pictures of actress Jennifer Lawrence that was leaked on the internet by a hacker in a major breach of privacy in early September. Not only is that illegal, the decision to carry Lawrence’s picture seems a suspension of all editorial sense considering Keith does not mention Lawrence even once in the interview. Expressing his unease with technology, the songwriter mentions that he has no computer and doesn’t want to be “hacked to death”. To this, the interviewer asks if he has heard about the recently-leaked nude photos of celebrities. Keith simply replies: “The more I hear about it the more I’m sure I’m right.” Though the web version of the story does not carry the image anymore, they did a rather shoddy job with the cover-up: cached copies of the image are still easily accessible. The print edition on the other hand, featured it prominently, blacking out the actress’ breasts.

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Image of the online paper: we blacked out the Lawrence pic ( to avoid following in T2’s footsteps).

Seemingly in an attempt to highlight Keith’s discomfort with the online world and the lack of privacy on it,T2 decided to publish the very image that compromised Lawrence’s right to privacy. We sent a mail to the editor of T2, Sumit Dasgupta, asking him why the image was used and whether the paper was aware that using the picture is illegal, and haven’t got a reply yet. The story will be updated with his response as soon as we get one.

In the meantime, we’ll take the pains to fathom just what could have made the paper do something as ridiculous as this.

Overworked editors

Anyone who has worked on the newsdesk would tell you it can be the most demanding job in newspapers. Since most print organisations don’t believe in investing  in hiring designers – the reason most Indian papers are a clutter-fest – sub editors, along with editing copies, have to design the page, look for images to go with stories and essentially make the entire page from scratch. “Deskies”, therefore, double up as designers in Indian newspapers. Quality, of course, is the first casualty. Perhaps the person working on the page was just too overworked to think of an accompanying visual that could convey Keith’s sentiments on technology. We get it and are sympathetic towards sub editors who brave mind-numbing working conditions. But what about editors and proofreaders?

Back from a break with a bang

Few media outlets have it better than those located in Kolkata these days. While journalists across print and TV organisations in, say, Delhi have to work on every public holiday including Diwali and Holi, media houses in Kolkata shut shop for about four days during Durga Puja. We’re told papers enjoyed a six-day Puja break this time. Perhaps T2 editors thought they needed to come back with a bang after such an extended break, lest readers forget the tabloid is a force to reckon with.

OMG: there’s competition out there

Let’s face it. The Times Group has really set the bar high when it comes to garnering maximum eyeballs with tabloid journalism, considering how the whole Deepika-TOI slugfest took over Twitter, print and television space last month. The Telegraph’s biggest competitor in Kolkata is The Times Of India, and perhaps the editors thought Lawrence’s nude picture could just do for T2 what Deepika’s cleavage did for Bombay Times. Now, all they need is a legal notice from Lawrence’s lawyer suing them for using the pictures.

Meanwhile, in her first on-record response to the photo-hacking scandal to Vanity Fair, Lawrence has stated that the incident was not a “scandal” but a “sex crime”. She went on to say that anybody who had looked at those pictures is perpetuating a sexual offense. “You should cower with shame.”

The actress features on the magazine’s cover of the November issue that quotes her saying: “It’s my body and it should be my choice.” Lawrence stated that she had nothing to say sorry for — the pictures were personal and she had clicked them for her long-distance boyfriend. “I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

In a tabloid culture that thrives on shaming celebrities who are victims of hacking scandals, Lawrence has boldly turned the table on those who circulate and view leaked images. Lawyers representing celebrities whose private pictures were hacked have threatened to sue Google for $100 million over failure to remove hacked photos. That should be a cue for T2 to publish an apology for using Lawrence’s image.

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