“Clarification” of the month

Who is that robed man? Apparently the winner of the Boston Globe’s Seán O’Malley Lookalike Contest. The photo at right ran Monday to illustrate a story on the archbishop’s personal, “colorful” side. Taken at one of O’Malley’s favorite bookstores, the picture did not survive the transition from the paper edition to the Globe’s Web site. Fortunately, the official Media Nation copy of Monday’s Globe had not yet been recycled when I read the “For the record” column in today’s Globe. Here is the relevant item in full:

Clarification: A photo caption that accompanied the continuation of a Page One story Monday on Archbishop Sean O’Malley gave the impression that it was showing O’Malley looking at books at Schoenhof’s Foreign Books in Harvard Square. Although the newly named cardinal likes to shop at the store, the photo was of a customer who identifies himself as Father Paul of Jesus.

Well, now. Why a clarification and not a correction? Here is the caption that ran with the photo: “Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley is a regular at Schoenhof’s Foreign Books in Harvard Square. Store manager Rupert Davis (left) said he buys books ‘that will help him better grasp the people.’ ” No, the caption does not specifically say that the guy in the robe is O’Malley. But come on. It’s a photo of a bookstore where O’Malley likes to shop, and the image is dominated by someone who looks almost exactly like O’Malley. A wimpy clarification isn’t good enough; it deserves a correction.

This calls to mind the thumbs-up photo that the Boston Herald ran of O’Malley the day after he was designated a cardinal — a photo that looked like the archbishop was celebrating when in fact the small type revealed that it was just a file shot. It’s nice to see that a lack of access isn’t stopping folks at the dailies from running precisely the pictures of O’Malley that they want to illustrate their stories.