The Associated Press clarified Thursday that it is not trying to make President Obama look like an angel, even though conservatives say some AP pictures make it appear as if he has a halo around his head.
The issue came up again this week, after some conservatives noticed the AP had published a photo of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. In that photo, an image of a gun is seen in the background, apparently pointed at Cruz’s head.
Critics compared the Cruz photo to previous pictures from the AP of President Obama, where he is seen with an apparent glow around his head in the style of a halo.
“Ted Cruz’s AP halo looks a lot different than Obama’s AP halo,” read a sarcastic headline on conservative author Michelle Malkin’s website.
“This Obama photo vs. Cruz photo comparison is all we need to prove your bias,” said one headline on the right-leaning website Twitchy.
But in a Thursday blog post, J. David Ake, AP’s Washington assistant bureau chief for photography, tried to end the controversy by saying the halo effect is caused by the presidential seal behind the president.
“The halo issue has been around for over a decade,” he said. “It’s never been our photographers’ goal to give the president a heavenly glow. The out-of-focus presidential seal is simply a tool to separate the subject from the background so he is not speaking in a sea of black.”
In the blog post, the AP embedded similar halo-like photos of former president George W. Bush, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, all Republicans.
“To eliminate the halo effect, we’ve talked about just shooting the subjects really tight, so nothing is seen around their heads, but that leaves the image with no context or sense of location at all,” Ake said in the post.
