Why did the New York Times pull the digital slide show, “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age”?
The New York Times has been caught up in a controversy over digital manipulation controversy that not only sullies its name, but really doesn’t make any sense why it was even done. In the July 5 edition of The New York Times Magazine, a photo essay by Edgar Martins was run entitled ’Ruins of the Second Gilded Age’, and included the disclaimer saying that the photos were being run “without digital manipulation”. The problem was that they were indeed digitally manipulated, and rather obviously so. The essay was a presentation of unfinished building projects and unsold homes due to the current housing market problems in the United States. It was rather powerful at first glance, showing construction sites that had been abandoned with all of the construction equipment left in place, leaves finding their way into unsold mansions and just a rather generally depressing climate of just how bad things are in the construction industry. Everything would have been fine, and probably gone without sc
