‘This doesn’t happen with white models’: OPR and Who Magazine under fire for misidentifying Adut Akech
Celebrity news and entertainment magazine Who and PR agency OPR are under fire after an interview with supermodel Adut Akech was accompanied by a photo of a different model. OPR, the agency liaising with Who on behalf of Melbourne Fashion Week, for which Akech was in Australia as an ambassador, sent a file of images to Who, resulting in the misprint: an almost full-page shot of Flavia Lazarus.
Akech posted about the incident on Sunday night, stating: “It goes to show that people are very ignorant and narrowminded that they think every black girl or African people looks the same. I feel as though this would’ve not happened to a white model.”
Supermodel Adut Akech
“Whoever did this clearly the thought [sic] that was me in that picture and that’s not okay. This is a big deal because of what I spoke about in my interview,” Akech wrote. The interview centred on Akech’s thoughts on refugees and attitudes towards people of colour.
OPR, WPP’s PR arm, said in a statement provided to Mumbrella: “Last week, a file of photos of model images was sent to Who Magazine, which resulted in an incorrect image being used in an article about Melbourne Fashion Week Ambassador, Adut Akech. The file contained photos of Adut and other MFW models. Regardless of where the administrative error was made, we sincerely regret any upset it has caused to the models involved, and our client the City of Melbourne.”
While OPR states a file of photos was sent, and an incorrect one chosen and printed by Who, Pacific, Who’s publisher, told Mumbrella that the agency “supplied us with the wrong photograph to accompany the piece”.
“Who spoke directly with Adut to explain how the error occurred and have sincerely apologised. We also apologise to Flavia Lazarus for the misprint,” Who said.
“Our intention was to share Adut’s inspiring story and highlight her achievements. We are committed to increasing the diversity in the pages of Who, and arranged the interview in view of this. Hopefully, the result of our misprint will be more people talking about this issue in the industry and tackling it head-on.”
Akech said Who Magazine has apologised to her directly, but felt she should speak out because “big publications need to make sure that they fact check things before publishing them”.
“Australia you’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said.
On its Instagram page, the City of Melbourne added it was “extremely disappointed” such a mistake was made.
“Both Adut and Flavia have expressed their disappointment and we support them. This error is unacceptable, and both Who Magazine and our public relations agency, OPR, have apologised.”
Akech was born in South Sudan, raised in a Kenyan refugee camp, and moved with her family to Adelaide before relocating to New York. She made her international runway debut three years ago and was the face of this year’s Melbourne Fashion Week.
“Adut is the fashion world’s newly crowned model supernova, whose meteoric rise to fame saw her close the Chanel haute couture show alongside Karl Lagerfeld in July this year, after attending the Met Gala as a special guest of Valentino in May, and then walk 33 shows from New York to Paris during the ready-to-wear season in September,” editor of Vogue Australia, Edwina McCann, said last year in her letter to the editor when Akech graced the December 2018 cover.
“Needless to say she has the fashion world at her feet.”
Akech was also chosen to be the cover star of British Vogue’s September issue, guest edited by Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
Other WPP agencies aside from OPR have been in the headlines recently. Former Mediacom MD Rob Moore commenced court proceedings last month, claiming he was made redundant because he disclosed a mental health condition and requested a reduced workload. And former Team Red MD Carmel Williamson has filed a similar claim, alleging she was dismissed and needed psychological treatment due to a “boys club” culture and a lack of support.
Last week, WPP reported that its revenue fell by 15.3% to $22.6m, and it wrote down the value of its agency brands by $270m.
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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Think it should start with the media industry overall, perhaps hire people from different backgrounds, classes etc so you get a wider perspective on many issues.
To top it off, think the team should’ve double checked on all the spelling, grammar, names of people before it was sent for print.
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Oh dear, this isn’t racism, it’s common and garden incompetence … happens all the time these days because people today are lazy, don’t do their jobs properly and take the attitude that any mistakes are “not my problem”.
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If this is predominantly happening to people of colour, how is it not racist? Just because it wasn’t malicious or purposeful does not make it less racist.
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It’s not racism. It’s incompetence, laziness, or both. Just like a recent radio network’s obituary flipped a famous image of the great aboriginal footballer Polly Farmer to show him kicking with his right foot, when the real image showed him kicking with his left [and yes, he was a left-footer]. Just like an American President called Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, John Fraser. Just like the great American supermodel Lauren Hutton recalling being addressed as Lauren Bacall. So, let’s call out incompetency and laziness – but let’s not confuse it with racism.
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again.
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Stupidity and laziness, not racism.
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THIS DOES HAPPEN WITH ALL PEOPLE
This is a human error and you have to read the story in detail to work that out. Shame on all the media for making this racist clickbait.
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“Just because it wasn’t malicious or purposeful does not make it less racist.” Actually, that is exactly what it does. Otherwise your redefining the meaning of the word.
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Not making excuses, but as someone who worked in weekly mags, I know the mad rush that happens at deadline can lead to mistakes like this. Things get lost in the shuffle and mislabelling happens a lot. Though not as much with white celebs clearly, but from a mag point of view, it happens.
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The trouble is, Pacific fired all the people whose job it was to check those things. When you fire 20+ sub-editors and outsource the work for cheaper, this is the result.
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Important to listen to the voices of those who are impacted by this – they are saying that there’s a problem – the women involved and the client Melbourne City. They are calling it out as having to do with a lack of diversity and inclusion and that there is a unconscious bias issue to deal with. Let’s respect the voices of those impacted – and the voices of our industry’s clients. They should know what racism feels like and be empowered to call it out rather than being shot down when they do… Anyone remembering Adam Goodes right now?
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Being fully honest… I mix up Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett all the time.
But I wouldn’t publish photos of either without checking which of them it was.
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Standards are out the window with mags barely making a buck. Read any newspaper or mag with a red pen in hand – no one checks anything anymore, there are no staff left to do so. ABC the other day said somewhere was on the central coast. Central coast of what. Well of course Sydney, but the rest of Australia left to guess.
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Media only hires people who will work for a rate they can comfortably multiply by 10 to charge the client.
The whole diversity play is a means to get more business. They don’t GAF.
I sincerely wish it were different.
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Thanks mate!!!!! Really helpful advice ????
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Yes…. the sportsman who liked to whinge alot
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Whether its intentional or not, this is racism. “oh, she’s a black girl, must be Adut”.
remember when the same thing happened to Lenny Henry when they mixed him up with Ainsley Harriett. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/itv-forced-to-apologise-after-confusing-lenny-henry-with-ainsley-harriott-in-segment-about-his-a3130286.html
More representation from minorities needed not KAK telling everyone to calm down as its an over reaction by the model!
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This isn’t racism; it’s poor attention to detail bordering on incompetence, but it’s not racism. It’s just fact that it is harder for people to distinguish faces of those from racial backgrounds different to their own: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/some-people-suffer-from-face-blindness-for-other-races/
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“it’s not racism, it’s sloppiness/lack of sub-editing” is a false dichotomy. It can be a combination of both. Unconscious biases make things like this happen, cutting back on resources make it less likely to get picked up.
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This kind of error is not something that has just started to happen. Its been happening in publishing for years. In fact ever since the printing press was invented. To suggest that it was racist is drawing a long bow, it was a mistake, it happens and it will happen again, just check out the number of apologies that appear in newspapers, magazines and even on the telly.
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Just noticed, on my screen at the bottom of the intro to this story it says
“read ore”…. !
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Hi Pete,
On our story, or the Who story? I can’t see anything of the sort on our story. How odd.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
On the Mumbrella opening page Vivienne, happy to mail you a screen shot.
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Yes, can you please, Peter? I can’t see it at my end.
vivienne@mumbrella.com.au
Much appreciated,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
It is a sign that Australia is,sadly,casually racist. A major article in a magazine with a full page photo to begin with. What could possibly go wrong?
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