Philippines: paper apologizes for stroke victim montage

One of the top-selling English-language newspapers in the Philippines, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, is catching hell for this front-page photo montage.

That's Demetrio Vicente, 70, a man who's survived two strokes and speaks with some difficulty. He's a witness in what is undoubtedly the largest ongoing news event in the Philippines: the impeachment trial against a supreme court chief accused of corruption.

The montage is clearly a jab at the man's contorted face. In case you can't make out the cutline, it reads "'CHARACTER' WITNESS: The many faces of Demetrio Vicente on the witness stand."

The Inquirer has apologized both to Vicente and its readers, which blasted the paper in blogs, Tweets and e-mails. And with the defense complaining that the montage reveals the paper's bias, the montage has forced the Inquirer to become part of the story and cover its own condemnation.

I suspect that, somewhere in Manila, the Inquirer's courtroom beat reporters are thinking vile thoughts about a certain photo editor.