Mag for Illiterates Can Live to Shock Again!
Worried you wouldn't get your chance to see photos of Chernobyl victims, self-immolation, and a bearded Val Kilmer making out with Paris Hilton? You can relax. Ad Age is reporting that late Friday night Hachette's new Shock magazine — which contains all those delightful images, plus so much more — reached a deal with photog Michael Yon, who claimed the mag had no right to put on its cover his image of a U.S. soldier carrying a wounded Iraqi child and had demanded all issues be pulled from newsstands.
Hachette is paying Yon money and making a charitable donation; Yon is dropping his threats and agreeing that Hachette acted in good faith when purchasing rights from a photo agency, Polaris. But Yon also claims he'd never worked with or heard of Polaris, which raises the entirely unanswered question of whether he's simply lying or the agency is going around selling rights to photos it doesn't own. We'd be curious to look into that — but, hey, we're too busy looking at pix of an elephant taking a dump (p. 81).
'Shock' Reaches Settlement With Photographer [Ad Age]
Earlier: Magazine for Illiterates Can't Even Rip Off Photos Right