U-Turn: Philly mag cover kerfuffle is political correctness run amok

From politics, we've learned that the apology can often make things much worse than the regretted act.

It's not much different in journalism.

And that's why Philadelphia Magazine's apology over its October 2015 cover actually makes matters worse.

Much worse.

In a story that's suddenly garnering national attention, Philadelphia Magazine has issued an apology for publishing a photo on its cover of students at Center City's Albert M. Greenfield Elementary School that didn't include any black children. 

This afternoon, Phillymag's editor, Tom McGrath, said, "To include not even one African-American child on the cover fails to reflect not just the diversity that exists at the Greenfield School (where the photo was taken), but also that within the city of Philadelphia. I'll offer no excuses here about process, etc.; at the end of the day, I chose this photo for the cover, and it was without question the wrong choice. I apologize for my failings in judgment and for our insensitivity."

McGrath went on to add, "It was a stupid, insensitive decision that I deeply regret."

I agree. It's stupid and insensitive – not to publish the photo, but rather to distance oneself from it and cave in to the absolute worst kind of political correctness this city has seen in a long time.

We all know that Greenfield is a racially and ethnically diverse school. Even when I attended Greenfield back in the 1970s, it was as diverse as an ad from the United Colors of Benetton.

The funny thing is even an out-of-town newspaper like the Washington Post is so into making this an issue of political correctness that they labeled the photo as featuring "a group of white children," even though several of the children are clearly not white.

Take a look for yourself.

But that doesn't matter to the haters, because, to them, there are only two colors – black and white.

Sorry, but black is not the only color. Nor is white.

I spoke to the cover story's author, Joel Mathis, who said on his private Facebook page that he "helped arrange the photo that's on the cover of Philly Mag this month." Mathis emailed me the following statement: "It's not a question of PC values, but of journalistic values. The job of journalism is to depict the truth as best we can. The cover shot didn't depict the truth of Greenfield — or of the Philadelphia school district — very accurately at all. That means we fell short, and I accept that criticism."

To me, the truth is a little different. You don't say a group of kids are white unless they are all white, as the Washington Post unfortunately did. You don't artificially create a photo by intentionally shoving a few black kids in it to prove diversity exists at a school. Doing that is as pathetic and insincere as  pandering politicians who intentionally inserts actors of a different skin color into their commercials.

Go ahead. Take a photo. But don't stage it to show sensitivity. For when you start tinkering with photos, you better not display diversity as a matter of black and white. A truly diverse public school like Greenfield is a mixture of races, skin colors, religions, ethnicities and much more. Conveying Greenfield through a black and white prism will backfire and not reflect the true treasure that exists inside its walls.

Contact John Featherman at john@featherman.com