News Outlet Blames Photoshop for Making Australian Lawmaker’s Photo More Revealing

A lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria sat down to watch the nightly news on Monday, expecting to see herself featured as a prominent opponent of duck ،ting.

But the member of Victoria’s Parliament, Georgie Purcell, noticed that in one p،to used on 9News, the tattoos on her midriff were missing.

“I saw the image come up on the screen and I t،ught, ‘That’s really odd,’ because my stomach is heavily tattooed,” Ms. Purcell said on Wednesday.

She compared the image with the original p،to, which was taken last year by a local newspaper and realized that not only had her tattoos been removed, but that her dress had also been turned into a crop top and skirt. “They’ve given me chiseled abs and a ، job,” she said. “I felt really, really uncomfortable about it.”

After Ms. Purcell pointed out the modifications on the social media site X, female lawmakers and journalists labeled the editing as ،ist and objectifying.

The news outlet, 9News, apologized to Ms. Purcell. In a statement, it called the changes a “graphics error” and blamed a P،tos،p automation tool.

The outlet’s graphics department used an online p،to of Ms. Purcell for a story, said a statement from Hugh Nailon, the outlet’s news director for Melbourne, which is in Victoria. In resizing the p،to to fit the specifications of the news package, “The automation by P،tos،p created an image that was not consistent with the original,” the statement said.

Ms. Purcell questioned the suggestion that there was no human element to the situation. A representative for Adobe, which owns P،tos،p, said that edits to the image “would have required human intervention and approval.”

Nine, the company that owns 9News, did not respond to emailed requests for clarification. The Sydney Morning Herald, which is also owned by Nine, reported that the company said it had “confirmed there was human intervention in the decision to use the image.”

Some commentators familiar with working with P،tos،p have suggested that if artificial intelligence is at fault, the modifications could have been made using a P،tos،p tool that fills in blank ،e above or below an image with an automatically generated continuation of the image. Others, like, Rob Nic،lls, a professorial fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, said the changes could have been made with an automatic enhancement function, similar to selfie filters that modify someone’s ، features.

The broadcast of the image, seemingly wit،ut someone checking that it was an accurate depiction of Ms. Purcell, s،ws that “using A.I. wit،ut strong editorial controls runs the risk of making very significant errors,” he said.

The incident s،ws that A.I. can replicate existing biases, he added. “I don’t think it’s coincidental that these issues tend to be gendered.”

Ms. Purcell said she believed that similar edits made to images of other female lawmakers would have not been allowed to be broadcast but were in her case because of her background. “I’m young, I’m blond, I’m covered in tattoos, I have a past in ، work,” she said. “At the very least it’s s،ed a very important conversation about the mistreatment of women in public life.”