The New York Times has a video op-ed in which a filmmaker named Jesse Epstein makes a case (and, really, who could argue?) that “magazines should let readers know if images have been retouched,” even if only by crediting photo retouchers, that all this (unacknowledged) retouching (the focus is on fashion magazines) is bad for, among other things, female self-esteem and body image.
(Not convinced? Remember that discussion on Fox News about how Newsweek, by running on its cover a supposedly un-retouched image of Sarah Palin, “slap[ped] her in the face” while “shocking and horrifying” “any woman” who saw the image?)
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.