I can quite understand why the SA Jewish Report would want to show the Israeli ambassador with the president of South Africa and the African National Congress on the front page, and record what said ambassador told our president (I can see him wagging his finger like PW Botha as I write this).
However, it would also be a good idea if you bothered to make sure that Cyril Ramaphosa, as a black person, can actually be seen. As it stands, only the pale persons are to be (vaguely) observed in the photo. It’s actually insulting to the president, I feel.
I do understand that your newsprint isn’t of the best quality which is why much more effort needs to be put into getting the contrast right. Mind you, there doesn’t seem to be an issue with all the many pictures of white people in the paper.
Editor’s response:
We tried everything to get a photo of this event, and weren’t able to. We managed to get this off the YouTube video I was able to access. There are many things that go into deciding what goes into the newspaper. As it happens, most people know exactly what our wonderful president looks like, but have never seen the new ambassador, which is part of the reason I wanted this particular shot. Also, it showed the amicable interaction between them rather than being a posed shot, which has more meaning. The president is so much more than the colour of his skin, he is a wonderful man and someone doing everything he can to uplift this country. However, often other issues override whose faces can be seen clearly and, as you can see, a lot of thinking went into why we chose this image. President Ramaphosa’s skin colour wasn’t one of them.
