Chattanooga Times Free Press

SHEKARI’S PHOTO MANIPULATI­ON

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We had thought better of Melody Shekari. The campaign for the bright, young Democratic candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd District seat in Congress recently uploaded a post on its Facebook site attacking incumbent U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischman­n that stemmed from a friendly exchange between the two at the Times Free Press.

The three-term Republican was just leaving his interview with the newspaper’s editorial board several weeks ago when Shekari was arriving. Shekari’s mother asked if Fleischman­n would pose with her daughter in front of a newspaper sign near the building’s elevator, and he graciously assented.

Last week, the casually-posed photo that resulted became something else. Wording on the post says, “Does this smile (Fleischman­n’s) look real?” The wording on the post says, “Cowardly Chuck Won’t Debate.”

On Friday, the Times Free Press asked the Shekari campaign to remove the post, noting that the newspaper “has taken care to provide balanced coverage this election cycle” and that the post of a photo “taken in good faith” could be thought to be showing favoritism in the race.

On Monday morning, Shekari said she would “discuss it with my campaign staff” — with the people in the campaign “working on communicat­ions that produce these blog posts.”

However, all that was needed was for her to remove the post herself or make one call to have it removed.

As of Monday afternoon, the post had 140 “likes,” 51 shares and 23 comments and elicited the usual name-calling, untruths and innuendo typical of a Facebook campaign site.

In 2014, we called out Fleischman­n for use of photo manipulati­on in a campaign mailing that made inaccurate statements about his then-primary opponent, Weston Wamp.

Earlier this fall, we similarly criticized Democratic state Senate challenger Khristy Wilkinson for attempting to smear incumbent Republican Sen. Todd Gardenhire with nearly 20-year-old informatio­n about a previous marriage.

Whether Fleischman­n decides to debate Shekari is worthy of discussion. Attempting to manipulate voters with a photograph made in good faith and good humor but used for an attack is not. The post should be removed.

Arguing the issues is one thing, but these type of dirty tricks have no place in the campaign of either party.

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