I grabbed this from VegNews, who may have gotten it from a stock photo site, and it might not be vegan. Just putting it all out there.
Guys. Didya hear? VegNews has been using stock photos of non-vegan food on their site and in their magazine as if they were vegan photos snapped by the mag’s staffers, QuarryGirl pointed out yesterday. Someone, start a riot! No, wait. Actually, before you cancel your subscription and torch their offices, let’s think about this.
Let me start by saying that if you get their newsletter, read their magazine, or visit their website, you have to know that these are stock photos. Case in point, yesterday’s newsletter recipe for Vegan Peanut Sauce with Spinach & Tomatoes includes this photo of peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter that is so obviously not the recipe. (Side-ish note: I’ve always been a little frustrated by their recipe photos for this reason: I have no clue what this thing is supposed to look like when it’s done because they sent me this ridiculously untelling stock photo.)
And if you know they’re using stock photos and you gave it any thought, you’d probably conclude that these can’t all be vegan stock photos. I mean, when was the last time you bumped into a vegan stock photo site? If you have, please tell me, because I might like to use it.
Then, you little detective, you, maybe you flip through your other magazines because, hey, VegNews can’t be the only publication that uses stock photos, and there, more stock photos. As Erik Marcus points out on Vegan.com, pretty much every magazine uses stock photos here and there as a matter of practicality.
Thing is, VegNews doesn’t say, anywhere, ever, that they’re using stock photos, and yet we have to assume they wanted us to think this was vegan food, in some cases, that they photographed. Which makes you feel a little deceived, doesn’t it? It wasn’t just one time, either; as bloggers I think we’ve all made the mistake of forgetting to credit someone’s Flickr photo, YouTube video, or whatever, and then one of your co-bloggers gently reminds you and you fix it and you try not to do it again. But VN has done this repeatedly. And as QuarryGirl commenter kristin, who says she was a short-time copy editor at VN, notes, she brought the meaty photo problem to their attention when she worked there, and they ignored it. Continue Reading…
