Newspaper Apologies for Photoshopping the Obamas as Apes

A newspaper in Belgium has apologised after it was accused of racism for running a satirical story where the Obamas were portrayed as apes. De Morgan ran an image titled The Obama Herald where the US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle were photoshopped to look like two apes. According to The Independent, the image was accompanied by the words: “Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia. He sent us this attachment at our request, and chose to send pictures instead of text 'because he doesn't have a lot of time'.”

so photo of the Obama's as chimps in De Morgen of today is the paper's attempt at satire. I forgot to laugh #racist pic.twitter.com/jc7cW7cbgD — chika unigwe (@chikaunigwe) March 22, 2014

Another image of Obama was also printed, with the words: “First black president of the USA starts selling weed.” The newspaper apologized this week for what it called a “tasteless joke” while admitting that their editors overlooked the racist undertones that the image carried, according to Flandersnews. "When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don't see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism," the newspaper wrote in its statement. "That was a risk we didn't consider enough beforehand."