Reuters, an American news agency that first released the comparative pictures of the crowds at the inaugurations of Barack Obama in 2009 and Donald Trump in 2017, explained how these photos were taken and why it came to disputes with the Presidential Administration.
“Reuters had asked the US National Park Service in an email on January 13 whether a photographer could be posted on the observation level near the top of the monument, the highest vantage point overlooking the National Mall. The next business day, the park service agreed to grant Reuters access, on condition the news agency would make the picture available to other media that requested it,” the statement follows.
Because the elevator was under repair, the agency’s photographer Lucas Jackson had to climb 897 steps to a height of 152 meters with a backpack and a bag full of photo equipment. “It was definitely a strenuous climb,” said Lucas Jackson himself. In addition, the photographs from this level were taken by a CBS News cameraman and a photographer of the Park Service. Later, Reuters published the two photographs comparing the sight of two historic moments in US history.
The second photograph came from 2009, made by another Reuters photographer, Stelios Varias – from the same place as the first one; it was taken at former President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, between 12:07 and 12:26 p.m., during Obama’s inaugural address.
The photo from Trump’s inauguration was taken at 12:01 on January 20, 2017. The caption of the side-by-side photos did state which crowd was larger, Reuters emphasize.
These images were soon distributed on social media sites where people have commented on the attendance at the National Mall. This caused controversy already in the first minutes of Trump’s cabinet, the statement follows.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer accused some media of engaging in “deliberately false reporting.” He insisted on the fact that the 2017 saw “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration.” However, on Monday Spicer came with a somewhat different rhetoric, pointing out that he stood by the remark given the “tens of millions of people that watched it online” with devices that were unavailable in the past.
