Hmmm...that's a touchy one, it's hard not to dismiss the photo as history has shown us exactly what you speak of, but...personally I really didn't give it much thought and I'm sure in asking the players themselves they would probably agree.
It hard not to analyze things but I also think over-analyzing can detract us from the main issue.

hi KL,

i'd like to think that the years I spent, and the tens of thousands of dollars my education at NYU Film cost resulted in a tiny bit of image analysis ability on my part!

and with all due respect, your "not giving it much thought" is exactly what media makers want of you. and the subject's awareness of the image composition or resultant impact is completely irrelevant to the analysis of same.

My hunch is that the photographer or shoot producer decided to put the white players in the middle to emphasize how 'crazy' Imus' comment was. Now, given that, I would assert that it's an attempt to move from the discussion of Imus' core racism to the far more palatable or easily digested "Crazy Ol' Imus".

I was a network news producer for 13 years. I won 3 Emmys. I assure all of your readers that the placement of the white players IS NOT random.

Con mucho respeto, my "not giving it much thought" in no way invalidates my point. It's all subjective, personally when I look at the foto the two main people I'm drawn to are the two black females in the center of the foto. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that what you are stating is in no way incorrect, as Newsweek has been guilty of "distorting" images in the past (i.e. O.J. Simpson)but as I said from my personal vantage point I don't see what you see nor did I see it glaring me in the face.

It's all subjective

isn't the point of this post to show us how exactly it is not subjective?

Hi KL:

It is actually not "all subjective."

You have just heard from two people trained and practiced in media. It is not by accident that we agree on how intentional these things are done.

Yes, you are drawn to the center of a photo, that's how the eye works. DPs know this when they shoot, directors know it when they compose, as do photographers. The eye will find the brightest and most central parts of a frame as an initial reflex.

I commented on your statement about not giving it much thought not because that statement "invalidates" your thoughts, but because if you read your original comment, it is positioned as a way of implying that the choreography of the image was not an intentional move, or perhaps that because a reader "doesn't give it much thought," that "not much thought" went into composing the image as I have noted. But as Carmen said above, mucho thought goes into these things!

"as I said from my personal vantage point I don't see what you see nor did I see it glaring me in the face."

Yes, as I said, you are not supposed to note these things consciously. But I hope you can see it now that it has been pointed out. It's rather a simple formula. Who is sitting on top of the "goal"? Who is sitting higher than anyone else? It's that simple. :) And honestly, it's not a "distortion" any more than all media is. This is simply how the world of media works. The average, uneducated, unpracticed eye is not meant to see it. But it is all around you. I studied this exact dynamic for years. And was trained by very accomplished media makers in a very reputable school.

I don't expect readers to see all these things "glaring them in the face," and that is exactly why I post on it! Given my focuses and experiences, I find myself in a perfect position to do so. To further make my point, all I can further do is quote, again, the graf I grabbed from the article:

media power is still concentrated largely in white hands and, as a result, racism is sometimes tolerated and enabled in ways that many white Americans are unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge."

What jumped out at me was the overall cover composition. It looks like the young ladies' pic was tossed in as an afterthought. I see Imus hideous visage as the overall draw for the cover.

Thanks again, Nezua. I appreciate your ability to analyze/decode imagery. I never studied that in engineering school. I was taught (like all the rest of us) to soak in the imagery without real-time conscious appraisal.

hey ill do chay, thanks.

i will have to edit this to include Imus. i don't see it as an "afterthought." he is placed below them looking up...very conscious! but it's not fair to comment further on that or expect you to note it as it stands, with him cropped halfway out. i'll include the full cover.

yes, in film school we were trained with this exact decoding and understanding of all implications of narration within an image. i can't say everyone who graduated absorbed all of it...but i made much use of the training as i was utterly fascinated, and always have been, in symbology and language. film/image vocabulary is another language.

update: pic switched to show full cover. and as a further/addtl comment, not only does this image come loaded but it further defies a neutral positioning by including large white text on a black bg that reads "Race, Power, and Media."

Wow. Yeah, they didn't exactly make Imus look "fallen," there, did they? Peering up quizzically — owlishly, we might say, dig those eyebrows — with his torso angled as though relaxed and leaning back in his chair, at the basketball team, so much smaller, with such grave expressions. I think there's some stuff going on with the team's body language, too, but I'm not quite astute enough to nail down exactly what.

Curious, too, the juxtaposition of that cover — though I haven't read the full article — with the quotation you pulled, which at least out of context seems to have been written by someone who almost gets it (strike the "sometimes" and change "many" to "most," and I could remove the qualifier there...).

good observations, smadin. i haven't looked closely at the body language...i saw the cover and was like WUT?? and that is my point exactly: the text "gets it" but the cover contradicts. however, there is a good chance the writer and fotographer did not share a vision, but only got paid to do their parts.

Yeah, I've read enough here and there about how rarely cover illustrations for books are chosen in communication with the authors not to expect that from a weekly magazine, so it's not like the photographer or the designer was setting out to undermine the article's author on purpose. On the other hand, there's presumably an editor, somewhere in the chain, whose job it is to see the whole package before it goes out the door — and a lot more people are going to see the cover than are going to read the article.

most powerful positioning indeed.

I actually had to concentrate on it for a while to be able to tell there were only two white team members.

The one is above everyone and even obscures the title. The other is the visual focus as everyone else is oriented toward her.

I think it must have been intentional, but... well, I have no idea, and I'll leave it at that admission.

great observations, Z. esp on the goal-girl's "court" of black players in a semi-circle around her (ostensibly around the goal).

also, in the context of such a "race/media/power" setting (as the cover's text will not let us overlook in our considerations) we can even go further with the white girl positioned above everyone. you note that she obscures the title. what letter is behind the white girl's head?

W!