The New York Times posted an intriguing editor’s note on an article about people sending photos of “their private parts.”
The July 7 article carries a July 11 editor’s note acknowledging the author wrote about “an intimate selfie” the author’s husband received.
The editor’s note reads:
“An earlier version of this article included an anecdote about a married man who received an intimate selfie from a woman who was not his wife; the article also included comments from others about the selfie.
“Editors were not aware until after publication that the married man was the writer’s husband. If editors had realized the connection, the incident would not have been included, or would have been described differently. That material has now been removed from the article.”
While the information in question has been removed, the Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple tracked down the now-deleted paragraphs from NewsDiffs, which tracks changes to several news sites.
A tale of cyber-infidelity is what inspired my research into the selfie erogenous zone after a group of us at Bosie Tea Salon in Greenwich Village glimpsed one that a married man received by direct message from a Twitter fan in California: a 48-year-old Turkish-Armenian housewife, mother of two and “lover of fine art” called Vivien (not her real name). It was captioned, without irony, “snap.”
From the awkward angle, purpled hue and identifying features, we realized Vivien had missed the advice on lighting and how to take the perfect anonymous shot (it’s all out there on Google) and included not only the beauty mark under her right breast but also a pierced heart necklace.
An attendee of the gathering named Shiran, 26, who recently received a degree in sustainability from Harvard’s extension school, said he didn’t get intimate iPhone selfies, only booty pics, but would be “pumped” if he did. He looked disappointed when he saw the shot and deemed Vivien’s “not well curated.”
iMediaEthics has written to the author of the piece, Laren Stover, and the Times to ask what went wrong.
Hat Tip: Zoe Bernard