NEW POLL! Are these good ‘ME’ images for the media? (See explanatory post)

We need your opinion on this pool of photos:
> Proposed collection of ME/CFS images for use by the media <
A group of forum members suggested and selected (here) the photos - as a resource for people who choose the images for stories in the media about ME.

Everyone is fed up with the media using photos of yawning, well groomed office workers to represent ME because this shows ME as a trivial illness. But picture editors in the media choose such photos because they've only got a few minutes to find images for each story and these are the images that are easy to find.

The way to change things is to make life easy for picture editors, by giving them a pool of better images to draw from, in an established photo library that they’re used to using.

Getty Images is the most popular library for photo editors and, after many suggestions and much debate, forum members created a photo pool on Getty.

These photos are by no means perfect and the ideal would be for charities to commission photographers to take images that represent ME properly.

But if they’re a worthwhile improvement on what picture editors are using now – yawning office workers – then we can promote the pool to charities and research groups, who can immediately link to them in their press releases.

The question is, are they? If they are, we want to be able to show that the pool has the support of lots of patients, so that prospective users will have confidence in them.

So please take the poll, and give us your opinion!

Thanks.

PS At this stage, we're not looking for further suggestions for images or comments on individual images.

 

Works fine for me in Safari on my IPad

 

Also working fine for me in Chrome.

 

Very nice, thank you everyone for your effort on this.

 

I don't know what a good picture for ME would look like. They certainly don't match my experience of mild/moderate ME. I don't look sick or tired most of the time. The only exception is when I have another medical issue going on at the same time as the ME.

 

A picture of my severity might be misinterpreted.
Dark shades inside, headphones on, long greasy hair and raggedy beard... Goth rocker .
Our diversity is not easily distilled and I would like to see that represented .
Whilst I'd be happy never to see a picture of a vaguely attractive woman looking a bit tired on a nice couch again there might be ME sufferers out there like that so they can have an occasional representation too.

 

The big problem is that even if each of us had the services of an understanding and skilled photographer for a week and our personal selections of their out put were pooled and voted on we would still struggle to get a set of photos that all agreed on.

I suspect we would be very hard pushed to come up with a better selection from currently existing widely used photo libraries than this, and that this is as good as it gets without a specially created image library that would require significant funding and time commitment and which still might struggle to get mainstream outlets to use it.

 

Thank you very much for all your work on this.

I prefer the photos of people in wheelchairs, and the hospital bed. As well, most of the bedridden photos, but some of the people in bed look hungover, and not like they have a disease that causes them to be bedridden. My view is of course subjective, so some others may not have the same reaction to the photos as I have.

I like pretty much all the photos.

All in all, thank you so much to the group who organized these photos and survey!

 

I want to add, I agree that these are not perfect in any sense, but I think that they are probably a good 5-10x improvement on the images that currently most often accompany articles.

 

If we got to choose, I doubt that any of us who voted 'yes' would choose every photo. It's about being pragmatic, sadly. A stopgap until we have something better.

This is a real problem. The key consideration is that a picture is worth a thousand words. A photo showing someone not obviously very tired would convey the idea that there's not much to ME (it's the curse of an invisible illness). Of course, most people only see the photo and the article title before skipping on to other things, yet would still get that message. @Sean started a discussion about this here.

Yes! I think it will take a good photographer and a lot of work (and a fair bit of money) to produce a better representative set of photos that also conveys what it is like to have the illness.

 

wanted to first thank you and second ask if we know more precisely what we are trying to achieve? or if we know pros who know what types of images are best for defending groups?


for example, here are some things we might or might not want.

- representativeness [not same as below]
- correcting misconceptions [not same as above]
- correcting disinformation [moving target]
- getting what we need [research, services, awareness, lack of persecution]
- showing science [beaker, flask with or without scientists]
- getting reader to read article if it is accurate
- getting newspapers and photo stocks to understand more for general purposes
- figuring out getting rid of the effect of hte name on searches including of photo stocks
- do you mean my exact [or sympathetic] demographic can get sick too?
- getting photo stocks to return useful results for likely searches
- matching the article
- improving logistics of getting photos to media
- getting photo editors to read articles or get results when they search. for... tired folk. or educating them?
- etc.

to me, correcting disinformation and miscomceptions is probably the pragmatic priority atm.

some misconception/disinformation for now and future are that m.e. isn't real or serious, is not in the domain of science [bad character, lifestyle, thinking], burdens/demons, or not fully deserving/human.


current media images remind me of the cdc's "faces of cfs" and "my legs are shot" campaigns.

those campaigns showed "healthy looking faces" [representativeness goal] and "massaging legs, healthy looking office worker". [said get "help". the kind of "help" you would have gotten is known to forum members.]

what we are seeing above most articles is the same as those campaigns. they keep pwme in the propaganda-created corner that pwme ARE healthy or close to healthy, nothing to do with science, etc.

they reinforce various status quo opinions. [including no prior opinion such as might be teh case with e.g. a usa non-medical reader. a good headline could make a big difference in such a case.]

 

Thanks, @Samuel. It's true that there can be different uses of photos but our aim was simply to create a pool from which photo editors could draw and that would represent a more realistic picture of ME/CFS than the current ones they use that trivialise it - such as the yawning office worker at their desk.

We were advised by a senior photo editor that there's no point in trying to educate photo editors about our specific topic - we have no way of doing that. Better to just point them to a pool of good images via our charities' and researchers' press releases.

 

I'd be so happy if any one of those photos was used instead of the usual awful pics they use. well done sasha & simon & everyone who contibuted i hope charities will runwith this

 

I had very mixed feelings about these photos, but ended up voting Yes in support anyway.

 

Thanks very much to everyone who has voted on the poll so far! We’ll be closing it on January 3rd.

And just a reminder – if discussing individual photos, please don’t post any copies or screenshots of pictures from Getty Images – it’s against their copyright terms and they’re known to use software that crawls the web looking for rogue copies of their images, so it’s best not to.

Thanks again, and happy holidays!

(With apologies for cross-posting.)

 

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll, which is now closed. 90% of you agreed that the photos are a worthwhile improvement on the ones currently used in the media. This means we can now pass on the collection of Getty Images photos to charities explained there were selected and approved by people with ME and their carers. And, hopefully, the charities will recommend these images to the media and we will start to see fewer images in the media that trivialise the illness.

We will also be passing on the view expressed by many people that what is really needed are a new set of photos and we will be suggesting that charities commission appropriate photos (in addition to those of severe patients arranged by the German Association of ME/CFS).

Thanks again.

 

Thanks, @Simon M - just wanted to add that any further discussion of the images and the pool should be on this other thread.

 

Thank you for all the work that went into this process.

 

I know this thread and the poll is no longer current, but in case anyone is interested I just found a website with un-watermarked pictures which are free for anyone to use.

https://unsplash.com/