The Kate Middleton Photo Controversy is an Inexplicable Mess
A Problem with Princess Charlotte’s Left Hand Revealed by a Kensington Palace Photo and the Comment on “Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C”
The area around Princess Charlotte’s hand has drawn the most scrutiny because of the inconsistencies with the image. The pattern of her skirt appears to overlap where her sweater should be. The source had changed the picture to meet AP standards, but the AP referred the story to WIRED because it said the source had fudged the picture. The picture shows a problem with Princess Charlotte’s left hand.
Kensington Palace releases a photograph of Kate and her three children on social media channels. The message concludes, “Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C,” with the “C” denoting Catherine herself. It credits the picture to “Prince of Wales, 2024.” Some people wonder if the date it was taken was right, as they notice the green foliage in the background.
The cheery image seemed to show that the princess was happy and healthy after she almost vanished from the public eye. Kensington Palace had shared scant details about Kate, 42, saying that after having “successful” abdominal surgery in January, she spent nearly two weeks in the hospital.
What to know about the ‘confusion’ over Kate Middleton’s edited family photo: How to ask the AP or the WIMP?
The questions became more and more real as they grew from rumor to full retraction. According to the AP, it is against its standards to remove “red eye” effects and to make substantial editing of an image.
Kate joins the rest of the royal family at a Christmas morning church service. It’s the last time she’s seen in an official capacity until the controversial family portrait emerges on March 10.
King Charles has “a form of cancer,” the royal family says, adding that it was diagnosed after his treatment for an enlarged prostate raised concerns about a separate issue.
Prince William is alone on the red carpet at the British Academy Film Awards without his wife, Kate.
Prince William unexpectedly pulls out of a memorial service at Windsor Castle, citing a “personal matter.” The memorial service for King Constantine of Greece was supposed to begin at an hour before William was supposed to give a reading, but it was announced that the prince would not be present. Kensington Palace did not elaborate further on the reason why Prince William could not attend but reiterated that the Princess of Wales continued to be doing well.
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The first photos of the princess after her surgery would be published on U.S. websites, which appeared to show Kate in a car with her mother. The photos show a woman wearing sunglasses in the passenger seat of an SUV driven by Kate’s mother, Carole Middleton, near Windsor Castle. The pictures were not published in the U.K., according to the Daily Mail, after Kensington Palace asked for Kate to be able to recuperate in private.
The British Army removed an announcement saying the Princess of Wales would appear at a military parade from its website. The photo of Kate was being included in the tickets. The palace says it never confirmed her schedule.
As of Monday morning in the US, the original Instagram post remains up. “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months,” the caption reads. “Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C.” (Mother’s Day is March 10 in the UK.)
It’s rare because wire services established relationships with organizations that submit images like NASA or the United Nations, and that is part of the reason. AP is not accepting and disseminating images from randos like you and me. The palace knows the editorial rules around what kind of material agencies will accept, making what they did even more brazen and a serious breach of protocol.
KateMiddleton’s photo editing job has become a hot topic for tabloids and conspiracy theorists. It is also the most illustrative example of how distrust and established processes create chaos in a new reality with the help of artificial intelligence.
For the past century, the British royal family has had a near-unparalleled grasp of the power of shaping public perception via images. The doctored photo of Middleton — and subsequent kill notices — is a misfire of historic proportions. The scandal could be seen as a sign of the royal family’s weakening grip on public perception. But it’s perhaps better understood as a reflection of our current epistemological hell.
The photo was seen by fans as the royal family’s way to signal Middleton is doing well after undergoing “planned abdominal surgery” in January; before this, she had been missing from public appearances for months, fueling tin foil hat theories that something was wrong.
It has been speculated that the royal family did this in order to hide something, which could be absolutely nothing. What’s more interesting to me are the structures in place for Middleton and her family to shape their public image and what happens when that all comes crashing down.
The Wild West: Why kill notices are rare in the wire services and Getty Images of the Biggest Crimes in the history of the Universe
The kill notices are very rare and unusual. The wire service source told me that they could count on one hand all of the kills that had been issued in a year. To give you a sense of scale, AP says it publishes thousands of stories a day and a million pictures a year. Getty Images covers 160,000 events annually. That a kill notice of this magnitude happened is a big deal.
The AP allows minor cropping and color adjustments, but it can’t remove red eye, which is against the rules of wire services. For everyone else it is the Wild West. There is no vetting for manipulated photos on social media, where the doctored image remains up without a note from the palace. A bright red alert appears at the bottom of an altered photo on the social media site. Independent fact-checkers reviewed the same altered photo.
The stamp tool is what is causing the errors, says WIRED’s design director. It pulls another part of the image together. When using this type of stamp tool recklessly, it is possible for an image to be cut off at random, with poorly defined outlines.
