Kate Middleton, France Press no longer considers Kensington Palace a “reliable source”

Kensington Palace is no longer considered a “reliable source”. This was said by Phil Chetwynd, global director of news at the France Presse agency, after the mess of the first photo of Kate Middleton after surgery. Chetwynd explained that It's rare for news agencies to “kill” an imageand why it was manipulated, but that on this occasion Kensington Palace did not even respond to the request for explanations or to provide the original photo.

«Up to now we have trusted the royals. Our London office has always forwarded the photos we receive from the Windsors to our clients around the world in good faith,” he explained to the BBC. «When we noticed the digital corrections we asked for the original image several times to replace the photo. When we didn't get a response we were forced to “kill” her.” It's about an extreme measure, taken «generally once a year, no more», usually for photos that come from the news agencies of regimes such as those of «Iran or North Korea». Certainly not from the British royals.

When trust is broken, regaining it is difficult. «Once you are betrayed by a source you demand a higher standard before trusting again, it's natural. At the moment we have sent a recommendation to all our teams to be absolutely more vigilant about the content that reaches our desk, even from what we would call reliable sources.”

For his part, Kate Middleton admitted that the photo had been manipulated by herselfwhich was attempting an “editing experiment,” and apologized for the confusion that had been created.

“One thing that's really important is that you can't distort reality for the public,” Chetwynd added. «It's a question of trust. And the big problem here is that of trust, and the lack of trust and the decline in trust of the general public in institutions in general and in the media. And therefore it is extremely important that a photo largely represents reality.”