Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.

So begins Janet Malcolm’s case study of journalistic betrayal, The Journalist and The Murderer. Fortunately, we are too full of ourselves to notice. Besides most “real” journalists would say that what we do isn’t morally indefensible in that sense anyway.

Malcolm never wrote about art editors, but in the age of photoshop there’s definitely material for an Adobe expose.

Like journalists, their job is complicated by their conflicting desires to sell magazines and be honest. Sure a Q&A will read better with heavy editing and Glamour might sell more covers with a thinner America Ferrera, but that doesn’t mean doing those things is right. And does the public deserve some of the blame for subconsciously wanting an Andy Roddick with bigger arms?

Well, these issues are too weighty for a Friday, but one thing is for sure: if you’re going to do touch ups, there’s no point in lying about which direction you’re going in.

Self art director Petra Kobayashi claims, “We retouch to make the models look bigger, healthier.”

Wow, their touchups are so subtle we barely noticed how fat the model above looks.