That this is MASSIVE news

[Flowerfairie]

Princess of Wales: Kate image withdrawn by three news agencies amid 'manipulation' concerns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68526972

I also agree with this. We know several members of the RF are ill atm. The RF 'machine' is not functioning well enough to avoid further PR issues. It's not that the pic is issued y'day (they usually issue a pic on MDay) or that it's had minor clunky photoshop, it's that the PR ball is being dropped again.

It may be as simple as the fact that the agencies have standards to meet and if they distribute pics that don't meet those standards it throws their general trustworthiness into question, and they don't want that.

In this case, it feeds into an ongoing news story about the royal family and will certainly add to the commotion. Nonetheless the agencies can't afford to overlook the obvious manipulation, especially with a photo under such public scrutiny.

Now I do feel that the royals have been behaving oddly recently, even for them, but whether that's anything massive or just more low-level chaos on their part, I can't say. I did like the alien abduction theory after seeing it on this thread but now that I've just seen the robot from China theory, I'm torn. 😁

Of course, I wish Kate well (if not robot) with her health problems as I'd wish anyone well, and hope for a good recovery.

I think the OP is being sarcastic.

Hilarious that people use their full titles on here. The sycophancy is endemic.

She looks in excellent radiant health in that photo (aside from sitting down). That’s what made me pause when I saw it. Nothing like the puffy face in the car from the other day.

I don’t think we should have a monarchy, but we do pay for them, and there are lots of royalists out there.

So, a picture of a recuperating woman should be honest, or not uploaded by KP. Conscious she has her image to protect. However, there’s a lot of weirdness going on and there are other ways she could have communicated had she wanted to (also re that future event with the army).

My ten cents, she’s not just recuperating, but she wants out, divorce, the end. Am sure this has been said a million times elsewhere, but I’ve not been following the conspiracy stuff, bar on here haha.

I agree with you; I reckon William took this on a phone or device with a 'merge for best picture' app. There are loads of those apps on the market now and they do sometimes throw up funny combinations.

The weirder thing for me, is that the family or the Palace decided to send the pic to the global news agencies. If they had just posted it on their Instragram then it would not have been subject to the Kill Notice as everyone accepts Insta and other social media is manipulated.

The Royal Family usually posts news on its own website and only sends notices to the global agencies when it's breaking news. A Mother's Day snap is not, in the normal course of business, breaking news. So what news were they trying to get ahead of?

You bothered to post. So your comment is ridiculous.

I have had absolutely no interest in the whereabouts of the POW, have never commented on a RF post until right now - but this is absolutely'a big news story' Radio 4s flagship news programme, 'Today' has run it as their headline since 6am. Which makes it significant news.

It's not about. 'a bit of photoshop' The issue is that Reuters, Associated Press and AFP have all asked their clients not to use the photo as it is 'concerned with its authenticity' .. seeing as it's come from Kensington Palace with the additional advice that it was taken earlier this week by Prince William, the inference is that KP and PW have manipulated it.

Which is indeed 'massive' news even to someone like me who has normally little interest.

Do you think the story's been killed then eh lol

I think the agencies took it from their SM?

If it is just an automated mash up in an attempt to have everyone looking at the camera at he same time, why not just say that. It's a normal family, dad's a bit of a rubbish photographer and couldn't get all the children to sit still at once, is surely quite nice PR?

I'm amazed that with all their money, they can't hire anyone who's good at Photoshop.

What do people think has happened then - those who feel ‘something is up or not right’ what do you possibly think it is? That secretly she has died and we’re not being told?? Seriously, let her be.

Why are people wetting their pants over the fact its been photoshopped? Literally everyone does it now days! Most people i know have filters/photoshop on any picture posted of them on social media, so if you are releasing a picture that is going to be seen by millions of people wouldn't you want it touched up?

I'm thinking this now. I thought everyone was crackers originally but now it seems that people who can't speak are raising attention another way. I hope she is OK.

You are missing the point.

YABU
The fact that the story is headline news doesn't necessarily equate to the significance of the event being reported. "Celebrity" nonsense frequently features as headline news even on the BBC.

Popular media outlets prioritise what they believe their readership wants to see. They're after clicks not Pulitzer prizes.

No it was sent to them. They wouldn't issue a kill if it was something they had taken from their SM.

Looking online the tweaks to the photos are so minor and don't affect any of their faces or body proportions so why on earth is everyone up in arms? Are they suggesting a stand in has been used and the Princess of Wales has been edited on top? If so why not just say that?

Also if the royal family are still using the picture and not issuing a statement then it says more about the media than the royal family.

That's not what the BBC's own article says

"In order to use the new photo as quickly as possible the BBC took the one used by Kensington Palace on their social media accounts."

@Sparetoes ok but the actual news agencies will use what they were sent by the Palace

“a human without a genuine purpose in life”
How can you say such a thing?
She’s a mother isn’t she, if nothing else?

I noticed that, too. Also, Louis crossing the second and third fingers of his hand in a really unnatural way. If you cross your fingers, you don't cross those fingers, and not in that almost impossible way.

I'm honestly not a conspiracy theorist. But I do know the press pretty well and believe that it is on balance a pretty big thing for the biggest photograph news agencies to issue a kill notice - particularly one of a very high ranking royal, taken by the heir to the throne.

Either KP asked for the photo to be withdrawn due to Kate not wearing her wedding ring (for whatever reason, whether sinister or not), or the press are signalling a complete lack of trust in what they're being told by the Firm. The Royals are powerful, the media is more powerful. Experience tells me that there is generally no smoke without fire where the press is concerned.

I've also noticed that the BBC version of the photo has now been cropped so no hands are showing. The earlier photo showed Kate and the children in full. The BBC will be heavily dictated to about Royal protocols and in the hands of the Royals, as we saw when newsreaders donned black several hours before the announcement came about the Queen having died.

When I looked at the photo on my phone I couldn't see anything wrong with it. Now I have the image much larger on my laptop I think that Kate's hands have been added to the picture. My reasoning for this is that her right hand on the left of the screen is blurry when the rest of the picture is much clearer and her right hand being added would explain why Charlottes cuff on her jumper is misaligned - which you can see clearly on a large screen.

If this photo is a new recent photo of Kate her face is so very different from the person in the car the other day that either the person in the car was not Kate or her face has been replaced too.

I just hope that she is alright.

It's probably a simple case of clunky use of 'best picture' merge software (the children are all grinning at the camera in perfect unison which is rather hard to achieve naturally!).

But given the amount of scrutiny that KP will have known the photo would be under, thanks to all the consipracy theories sloshing around, you'd have thought they would have been more careful about the photo they released - sending out an image with obvious photo manipulation has just hugely fanned the flames.

I can cross my fingers in the manner he has and as a kid took great delight in grossing people out with the weird ways I could contort my hands. He strikes me as the sort of child who would do the same.

It’s not, though. I’m aware that many things can be discussed at once, but this is hardly huge news imo. The daily Mail absolutely love nonsense like this and have form for ignoring actual issues caused by the Tory government that they love so much.