Nine News in dispute with Adobe over doctored image of Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell

Nine News Melbourne is now in a dispute with technology giant Adobe over a digitally-altered image of Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell’s ‘enlarged’ chest.

Nine News is in dispute with international technology giant Adobe over the doctored image of Victorian Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell which resulted in the politician declaring she was given “enlarged boobs” and a “revealing” outfit in an image that aired on TV.

Nine News Melbourne’s director of news Hugh Nailon is standing by his comments that the image was the result of “automation by Photoshop,” despite Adobe, who owns Photoshop, saying “human intervention and approval” was required.

The Australian has been told the original image of Ms Purcell was used from an article published in the Bendigo Advertiser on October 21 last year and only showed the politician from the top of her waist upwards.

A Nine spokesman said the Photoshop system was used to “resize the image” to run with a story about duck shooting which resulted in the image of Ms Purcell being lengthened to instead show her wearing a two-piece white outfit with her midriff showing that aired on the 6pm news.

He said these changes were automated.

Ms Purcell, who formerly worked as a stripper, shared images showing that it was a dress she was wearing, not a two-piece top and skirt.

The imagery shown on Nine’s bulletin was shown while newsreader Alicia Loxley was reading the news bulletin in only her third week as the station’s duo presenters including Tom Steinfort.

Despite Nine’s explanation, a spokeswoman for Adobe told The Australian that the changes to the images could only be done via human intervention.

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell has accused Nine Entertainment of photoshopping her image to enlarge her breasts and expose her stomach.

“Adobe is committed to ensuring our technology is developed responsibly and respects our customers and communities,” she said.

“Changes to this specific image would have required human intervention and approval.”

The story made international headlines including on the BBC and UK Telegraph, with the BBC running the headline, “Georgie Purcell: Nine News Melbourne’s doctored MP image causes sexism fury.”

I endured a lot yesterday.

But having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card.

Note the enlarged boobs and outfit to be made more revealing.

Can’t imagine this happening to a male MP.

What gives? pic.twitter.com/NhnkDRMidc

— Georgie Purcell (@georgievpurcell) January 29, 2024

Ms Purcell said on Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter that “having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card.

“Note the enlarged boobs and outfit to be made more revealing,” she wrote.

It is understood extra shading was added to the image of Ms Purcell that appeared on the news bulletin, giving the impression that her breasts have been enlarged.

A Nine spokesman said Nailon stood by his comments over the graphical error.

“Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting,” Nailon’s statement said.

“As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs.

“During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original.

“This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly.”

Staff at Nine have been spoken to about the matter.

Nailon also contacted Ms Purcell to apologise over the issue.

Nine has also removed Monday night’s 6pm news bulletin episode from its streaming app, 9Now, to prevent the image from being viewed again.

Rival media services including 10 News First in Melbourne, presented by Jennifer Keyte, made the most of the issue plaguing Nine, running with the story as its lead item on Tuesday’s 5pm news.

“Channel 9 has been forced to make a grovelling apology after broadcasting a digitally-altered image of a female politician on the evening news,” Keyte said.