NYT photographer: We didn't crop George W. Bush from Selma pic

A photographer for The New York Times says the publication did not crop former President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush from a photo featuring President Barack Obama, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and others leading a march commemorating the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” clash in Selma, Alabama, over the weekend.

“There was no intentional cropping of President Bush out of it at all,” Mills told POLITICO, adding that the earlier photos he filed included the 43rd president, but that as the day went on, Bush was walking in the sun and those photos were not sent.


In a note to photo editors on Sunday, Mills said he didn’t file the shot with Bush included because it was overexposed.

“I did not even send this frame because it’s very wide and super busy and Bush is super-overexposed because he was in the sun and Obama and the others are in the shade,” Mills wrote, per Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan.

In a post on the Times’ website, Sullivan wrote that the paper received many critical emails and tweets from unhappy readers over the weekend.

“While it would have been moving and worthwhile to see both presidents in a front-page photograph, I see no evidence of politics in the handling or presentation of the photo,” Sullivan said.

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