Time magazine’s top editor on Sunday stood behind his publication’s controversial cover of a crying migrant girl photoshopped beside a towering President Trump, even though the girl was never separated from her mother.
“We discussed it as we discuss every cover and we felt that, I felt that this photo symbolized this moment in America,” editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said in an interview with CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “She became the face of this debate, of this crisis, and juxtaposing her with the person whose decisions, in whose hands her fate was held, I thought was a powerful, important statement of the decisions we have to make as a country.”
Time was widely criticized for using the image of a two-year-old Honduran girl, whose father later told the Daily Mail that the child and her mother were being detained together.
Felsenthal on Sunday reiterated his qualified regrets over Time’s reporting that suggested the girl was “carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents.”
“Read the coverage, read the reporting. We did make a mistake. And obviously, I regret that mistake and wish we hadn’t made it,” he continued. “But we fixed it, we fixed it quickly as all responsible media outlets do, and our coverage has been fair and thorough and will continue to be.”
Felsenthal added that the magazine’s editors rarely consider Trump’s response when workshopping cover ideas.
“I’m certainly aware of his interest in the cover, and the way he talks about the cover and has talked about the cover. I suppose I would say it doesn’t affect what we decide to do on the cover. It’s not aimed at him,” he said.
