Why is this pistol photoshopped?

Check out this news story I stumbled across:

Man Shoots At Deputies, Burns Car To Ground During Standoff - www.ktts.com

Some nutjob shoots at deputies, burns their squad car after ramming it with a tractor or something, eventually gets caught. But what caught my eye was the pic of the pistol they used in the article:



Clearly it's a Springfield XDm Compact. Also it clearly has the extended magazine in it. Yet someone retouched the photo to make the grip look like one piece, and smooth at that, removing the XDm's trademark aggressive tread pattern on the grips. So my question is why bother? Why retouch it? Yes I'm nitpicking here, but someone had to go through the effort to retouch that photo, but for what reason? Inquiring minds want to know...

koorbloh said:

maybe so they don't get in trouble for bashing/advertising a specific pistol?


maybe because they didn't want to be seen as bashing/advertising a specific pistol?

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Ok I'll buy that, as the "XDm" logo is right there too.

you say "clearly" like anyone who's anyone should know it's an XD--well, my mom doesn't.

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Yeah, like any gun enthusiast who regularly reads this forum, and thus likely to see my post. Was your mom reading my post and complained because she didn't recognize it?

koorbloh said:

my mom reads news for a living.

I didn't recognize the pistol either.

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Really? How much does it pay? Are they hiring? I read news for free all the time, getting paid for it would be so much better!

richardlpalmer said:

I think the only times they DON'T do that sort of thing is when they have images of the actual weapon used.

I'm wondering if that XDM is a stock image (like for sale/lease). If so, that would also make sense. They never use branding in those types of images...

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Something I didn't notice at first... not only is the grip smoothed out, but look at the barrel in the ejection port, the caliber and SN marks are all smoothed too. So yeah, I'd have to go with the logo infringement.

I've seen logos etc blurred in tv/movies before, but this is the first time I've seen (or at least noticed) a gun 'blurred' in the same way. But it does make sense.