To the editor:

I have a simple question: Don’t you have enough money to take your own pictures of Rep. Elise Stefanik? Why does the Adirondack Daily Enterprise continually publish Rep. Stefanik’s own promotional photos in its news columns? This happens all the time, both in the paper itself and on your website. Sometimes you print a line indicating that the photo was “provided,” but other times you don’t. Sadly, you are not the only paper that does this.

Photographs are part of the news product just as much as your stories. If there is news value in having a photo of Stefanik with a story, that’s fine. Why not use a photo that you took of her at some event in your circulation area rather than simply reprint, again and again, a promo photo that’s lifted right off her website. (I note a distressing tendency to use similar promo photo of Tedra Cobb, the announced candidate running against Stefanik.)

Please respect the line between news and promotional advertising.

Peter Slocum

Keene