National Archives admits censoring Trump criticism from photo of Womens' March

[OWYAC]

Reminds me of my grade 13 English teacher (I’m in Canada, and old; we had grade 13 then)

[NickyG]

In the US, we don’t even have 13th floors* in many buildings – I have to imagine 13th grade was very unlucky for all involved?

*they are not labeled as such, many buildings go from 12th to 14th floor

[stellans7]

Oh, so blurring “Trump” and “vagina” (plus other words) was to show non-partisanship and to protect tender young eyes, but the National Archive folk didn’t blur “GOP.”

[OWYAC]

I don’t think that even occurred to our school board!

[anon2148050]

They didn’t censor things during Nixonian times IIRC…

[Hanglyman]

We made a mistake.

As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration.

No explanation of how this “mistake” happened or why, followed by a bald-faced lie that’s directly contradicted by the very existence of the “mistake” being discussed. Good for them for doing the right thing when it was pointed out how offensive this was, but it would sit a lot better if they didn’t simultaneously deny that it happened even while apologizing that it happened.

[dontpanicbobby]

Well at least they haven’t altered MLK’s famous “I have a migraine” speech.

[mototom]

It isn’t a lie, although they’re splitting pretty fine hairs. Nothing in their collection was altered; the image they censored was a promotional display and not part of the archival collection.

I think it was a bad decision but it’s a little overblown.

[Hanglyman]

Okay, fair enough, I guess it’s technically not a lie, but the implication is certainly there- if they weren’t implying that those same standards apply to the National Archives as a whole, it wouldn’t make sense to mention the collection specifically in this case.

[mototom]

I don’t see it that way but it was definitely a terrible decision. But this was just a photo they licensed from Getty and I imagine they’ll discard the display when they’re done with it.

I can see where you get your interpretation but I don’t find their use of the term “archival holdings” misleading. I think they just drew a line that they shouldn’t have and treated this display differently than they’d treat something that’s kept there for the historical record.