"What gives?" Victorian MP slams "photoshopped" image
A Victorian MP has slammed Channel Nine for airing a "photoshopped" image of her, in which her outfit was made more "revealing" and her breasts were "enlarged".
Georgie Purcell, an MP for the Animal Justice Party, was featured on Nine News on Monday night during a segment about duck hunting, with the network using a promotional image of the MP for the TV package.
However, Ms Purcell claims the major news work altered the photo, and took to social media to share a side by side comparison of the original image and the one Nine aired.
“I endured a lot yesterday. But having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card,” she wrote alongside the images.
“Note the enlarged boobs and outfit to be made more revealing," she added, pointing out that her white top had been altered to look like a crop top, showing off her midriff.
“Can’t imagine this happening to a male MP. What gives?”
In a second tweet, Purcell pointed out her stomach has been tattooed since 2020 and the photoshopped image did not show any tattoos, despite her outfit being changed to show her stomach.
On Tuesday, a statement was issued from Nine News Melbourne news director Hugh Nailon apologising for the “graphic error”.
“Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting,” he said.
“As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs. During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original.
“This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly.”
Purcell told 7News that she only realised her image had been photoshopped when she watched Nine’s bulletin.
“I noticed because my stomach didn’t have a tattoo on it. So I found the original photo and noticed not only had they given me abs and the crop top, but they’ve enlarged my breasts as well,” she said.
“Seeing your own body altered on TV on the big screen is very confronting and I hope lessons are learnt from it."
“This has affected me in some way and it could affect other women even more and it should never happen again.”
Image credits: X (Twitter)