The Great Vegan Magazine "Meat Photo" Scandal

Did you know about the greatest media scandal of the year? It’s pretty great: VegNews, the magazine for vegan eating (vegans don’t actually eat the magazine, though yes, they might as well; it has recipes of “actual” food), has been Photoshopping stock photos of real meat dishes as illustration, by removing the meaty bits or just straight up using real meat. Can you imagine the betrayal? It’s a little like Out putting straight people on the cover. (Oh, wait, they do that all the time.) It’d be like Forbes putting poor people on the cover! Or Tikkun profiling David Duke! Or Time choosing someone interesting! (Kidding!) But seriously, if I were a vegan, I’d be really totally skeeved out. Reading through the comment thread on the big reveal (which is an incredible document) actually shows not just straight outrage but also a number of people that are upset but wanting to be supportive of the magazine, which issued a really bad apology, in which they note they have more than 1 million readers a month but claiming that it’s “industry standard to use stock photography in magazines.” (No, it isn’t actually?) Unfortunately, a former employee claims that the letter “is filled with outright lies.” (via)