Brendan Nyhan

Picking Chelsea Clinton pictures

I’m not one of those people who sees media bias in every picture choice by newspaper editors, but Chelsea Clinton has been getting a bad deal lately.

First, Politico ran a story on her press aide, Philippe Reines, that included a picture of him standing behind her looking like a psycho:

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Then a critical Los Angeles Times story on her taking “[d]ramatic license” in her anecdotes included this unflattering picture:

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I understand the incentive for editors to choose the most attention-grabbing picture, especially when it reinforces the theme of the article, but these are just awful.