The media's subtle way of trolling Donald Trump
It's a subtle jab when media outlets choose not-so-flattering shots to run with stories about public figures. For President-elect Donald Trump these images seem to pop up constantly, as something of a dig from the "dishonest" media outlets he continues to insult.
Back in November, Trump even told NBC News enough with the unnecessary double-chin shots. In a Politico story, a source said Trump told NBC News President Deborah Turness that "the network won’t run a nice picture of him, instead choosing 'this picture of me.'" He then made a double-chin face.
Trump knows the media inside and out, and is hyper-focused on his image and brand. His entire campaign seemed to be based off his "Make America Great Again" slogan and those matching red hats.
From what we know of The Donald, he can't be pleased with these type of images leading stories: shot after shot with his lips puckered in an "o," eyebrows raised and taken from below.
Of course, Trump's photo plea backfired once the public heard about it. And in the months since his election it doesn't seem like the media has really let up. Sure, what makes a good photo is subjective, but looking around online news media sites, some terrible photos -- no matter how you look at them -- are used again and again.
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Those darn double chin shots of the soon-to-be president have been used all over. A reverse image search shows that that particularly egregious photo, which Twitter went loose on, is on many news and social media sites.
Trump crouching by a flag pole is another favorite, going up alongside serious stories. A different, but just as unfortunate double chin photo gets placed on top of many Trump-related stories and posts.
Getty Images pulled together their top five downloaded photos from the election. The most popular one is a photo of Trump at a Dallas rally by Tom Pennington. And yep, he's making a face. This unquestionably unflattering and downright unpresidential shot was downloaded 177 times more than the average number of election image downloads.
The photographer Pennington wrote in a Getty Images blog post that when he took the photo back in September 2015, "Trump was more of a novelty. People didn't take him seriously. No one thought he would gain the momentum he did."
The second-most popular is another silly Trump face. The third is a side-by-side photo of Trump with with Hillary Clinton, he is yelling, mouth widely open, during one of the debates.
It's not just Trump feeling the brunt of unflattering photo selections. During the election, Clinton was victim of this same sly media trolling. For example, Breitbart, the right-wing, conservative news site, consistently chose photos that emphasized the 69-year-old's wrinkles and age, and used the double chin angle tactic that annoyed Trump.
Nobody is picture perfect, but these are not the best shots.
However, let's be clear, Trump can take a perfectly fine picture, which do get used in a fair share of stories. Here's a small selection for your image library:
Topics Donald Trump
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
