In January, there was a worldwide uproar when the Associated Press published a picture of four young climate activists—Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Isabelle Axelsson and Loukina Tille— right after they had addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The problem was that there were five activists. Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate had been cropped out.
“It really hurt me when I was cropped out of the photo. It was a hard time for me and I was frustrated, disturbed and wondering how things like this still happen, are happening and why it had happened,” Nakate recalled.
The international furore, led by Africans online, was so immense that the AP not only changed the photo—while defending themselves against accusations of ill intent and saying the photographer had cropped the photo for composition purposes—but executive editor Sally Buzbee apologised to Nakate, both publicly and in person.
“I accepted AP’s apology. I am sceptical about it for the fact that they released photos where I appear only after the complaints,” she said.
However, there was a silver lining to all this: It raised awareness and gave prominence to her climate change activism. Read more…
