It appears that Transworld Snowboarding, the world’s biggest selling snowboard magazine, has allegedly altered a photo that appeared on its front cover – apparently for advertising purposes.

Several websites have picked up on the fact that the Ballpark logo which appears on a crate on the cover of the September issue of Transworld appears to have been photo-shopped on after the photo was taken. Here is the offending cover, featuring French Canadian rider LNP…

Photo: Scott Serfas. Source: followingthedie.wordpress.com

…and here is a still from a video of the event. If you can spot the logo on the crate in this video then either we’re blind, or you’re off your head on acid.

Now, you might be asking why any of this matters? If a well-loved mag like Transworld want to make a few extra bucks by adding some hotdog company’s logo onto a photo artificially, then who are we to tell them not to? Whitelines is not in the business of criticising fellow mags – and particularly not the oldest and most respected mag in the business – but, it seems to us that at the very least this throws up a lot of issues and raises questions about the difference between advertising and editorial content… these questions seem important to us and, as such are worth reporting. Judging from the shit-storm it’s kicked up online, the issues at stake seem to matter to others as well. The debates make interesting reading anyway – check out the comments on this site for example.