It may not be the most damaging or inflammatory scandal in the past month for Mark Robinson's campaign for governor, but a WUNC analysis of photos used on his official campaign website shows that many of the images on the site are being used without permission.
The images of a smiling Robinson — clad in a blue suit, red tie and appearing before a crowd of supporters — were taken by freelance photographer Lynn Hey at the candidate’s announcement event in April 2023 at the Ace Speedway in Alamance County.
WUNC contracted with Hey to cover the event. That contract stipulates that WUNC can use the photos in perpetuity, but Hey retains ownership and the right to sell them to any other media outlet or entity.
Hey said she did not sell those photos to anyone else, nor give permission to the Robinson campaign to use them.
“This is the most egregious misuse of my photos I have ever encountered,” said Hey, who has been a professional photojournalist for more than 30 years, first for the News and Record newspaper of Greensboro and later as a freelancer.
'I did not sell these to Robinson'
WUNC reached out Robinson's campaign for comment and did not receive a response by press time. The photos on the website are not credited to Hey or any other photographer.
Robinson, North Carolina's Republican Lieutenant Governor, is running against Democrat and state Attorney General Josh Stein for the state's highest office this election season.
Robinson's campaign website uses several of Hey’s photos, cropped in various ways and spread numerous times across the site, on browsers for computers and mobile, from the main home page to the “donate” and event pages. The Robinson campaign is also using versions of the photos in email blasts to invite supporters to events.
On his Facebook and X accounts, Robinson is also using a photo by longtime News & Observer photographer Robert Willett that seems to have been edited from its original version. A different photo from Willett also appears on the campaign site's "donate" page.
“Unfortunately, we see this happen repeatedly, every election season,” says Alicia Calzada, Deputy General Counsel for National Press Photographers Association. “In many cases it is not malicious. Rather it is a consequence of a campaign not understanding the basics of copyright law. This is especially true in down-ballot races, but we see infringement all the way up and down the ballot, and we see it in both parties.
“That said, the communications team of a gubernatorial campaign should be professional enough to know better.”
Hey exploring legal options
The Robinson campaign staff recently saw significant turnover, immediately after a bombshell CNN report that Robinson previously posted messages on NudeAfrica.com, a porn website. His communications staffers, who routinely correspond with media outlets, were not among the staffers who quit.
Hey says she plans to reach out to the Robinson campaign and ask that the photos be removed immediately. As of Friday afternoon, the photos were still on the site. Hey says she intends to explore legal options, if the photos are not removed.
In some ways, the damage may already be done.
“In the context of a political campaign, a photojournalist needs to remain impartial as a part of their job responsibilities, and so when a campaign uses photographs without permission, it threatens the appearance of impartiality,” Calzada said. “This is one reason why many photojournalists fight so hard to protect their copyright.”
WUNC also reached out to Stein's campaign and asked about where it obtained photos on its website. The campaign did not respond by press time, but WUNC analyzed 26 photos that appear on Stein's campaign website and could not find any instance of those photos previously being published anywhere else.
WUNC Digital Producer Mitchell Northam contributed to this report.
