Imatag has analyzed over 120,000 images on the websites of 23 major news organizations in Europe and North America and determined that
only 3% of those published have credit or copyright metadata.
Photographers will be surprised to learn the names of publications that are stripping data compared to those that actually credit photographers and leave the metadata.
| Publication |
Percent Images |
| |
With Metadata |
| Huffington Post UK |
86% |
| Der Spiegel |
84% |
| Le Figaro |
70% |
| Le Monde |
64% |
| Huffington Post CA |
51% |
| Politico |
43% |
| Slate |
17% |
| Liberation |
2% |
| La Vanguardia |
0% |
| The Gurardian |
0% |
| New York Times |
0% |
| USA Today |
0% |
| Wired |
0% |
| El Pais |
0% |
| LA Times |
0% |
| La Presse |
0% |
| Le Point |
0% |
| Wall Street Journal |
0% |
| Die Zeit |
0% |
| L'Express |
0% |
| Washington Post |
0% |
| De Stern |
0% |
| New York Post |
0% |
The practice of stripping metadata dates back to the early days of the Internet when its speed was so slow. Today, its no longer necessary. As proof, some of the newer news sites do not delete metadata anymore.
When Thierry Secretan questioned the IT directors of some of the publications that strip everything they admitted that there is hardly any technical reason for doing so today. Mostly, it seems to be done out of habit with no analysis of the benefits or the disservice it might cause the creator. The New York Times argued that stripping the metadata was a question of confidentiality to protect the journalist!
On the other hand, one would think that to leave the photographer’s name, accurate caption information and some way to contact him or her in the event someone else wanted to use the image would be a benefit to the image creator.
Check out the full article by Thierry Secretan on Imatag.
https://imatag.com/en/blog/2018/05/11/who-kills-our-metadata/
Here is a
link to the complete study.