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Letter: Deceptive ads should have no place in The Tribune

(Rick Bowmer | The Associated Press) This April 20, 2016, file photo shows copies of The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper in Salt Lake City. The Tribune newsroom takes up one floor of the building that bears its name, overlooking snow-capped mountains and the arena where the Utah Jazz play. Once a Digital First property that dealt with staff reductions and feared closure, the paper was sold to a prominent local family in 2016. Since then, its reporters received their first raise in a decade and won a Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting.

Does “truth in advertising” still apply to The Tribune? A big exception to this appeared on page A5 of the April 29 paper. There was an ad for a dental company (Grandpa’s Family Dental) showing supposed “Before and After” pictures of a woman who got dentures or implants (they didn’t specify which).

The “after” picture is so obviously deceptively altered. She apparently not only had her teeth fixed for the “after” picture, but somehow her nose and chin were also prominently “surgically” manipulated — they are both much smaller and better shaped. And all the lines and wrinkles in her face are magically gone! Plus, her makeup is a lot more flattering.

This appears to be deceptive and misleading, and has no place in The Tribune, or any other legitimate publication. Does anyone check these before printing?

You can be sure my family will never use this dental company, and I would hope your readers feel the same. If companies can’t be honest with us, they certainly don’t deserve our business — and you should not accept their advertisements.

Alan Linett, Sandy