Modern cameras shoot in burst mode, capturing dozens of frames per second. From any single moment, a photographer might walk away with images of a subject laughing, engaged, mid-blink, or distracted. Editors then choose one. And that choice, by itself, can change the entire story being told.
A recent example where a photo of Trump was selected to suggest confusion, while other frames from the same sequence, taken seconds apart, showed a normal, engaged exchange. The image was authentic. Nothing was Photoshopped. But the frame that ran aligned with a particular narrative that the broader sequence didn't really support.
For campaigns, candidates, and anyone working in comms, this is a useful reminder. The threat we should be planning for isn't only fabricated images. It's real ones, selectively shown.
