Microsoft has fielded a storm of criticism in recent days regarding the doctoring of a photo on their website. In a somewhat unusual turn of events, Microsoft has actively changed the race of one of the men in a corporate photograph on their website encouraging businesses to “empower your people with the IT tools they need”.
In the US version, the photo features two men – one black and one Asian – and a woman sitting at the boardroom table. However, on Microsoft’s Polish website, the face of the black man has been replaced by a white man.
Courtesy: smh.com.au
Microsoft has now acknowledged they have made an error and have officially apologised saying “we are looking into the details and are in the process of pulling down the image”. One of the early reports of this story appeared on Fox News, although many of the local online news outlets, including SMH picked up the story via AP two days later.
Where my interest was piqued was how this came to the attention of the newsroom in the first place? US consumers appear to be very sensitive to race issues like this (you only need to look as far as the recent strops by Harry Connick Jnr – but more on this later), more so than we are here in Australia.
So, newsworthy? Well, yes, it does tick a few boxes when considering those ‘news values’ items. However, I think this carries more weight in the public sphere simply because of the professional embarrassment factor for Microsoft. What are your thoughts?
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