People have a weird relationship with black and white images. Monochrome images tend to confer a certain authority and make the subject seem more noteworthy, authentic, and believable compared to color photography. Which is remarkable seeing as color photography contains, y'know, more information. At the same time, black and white images create a separation between the us and the them. Serious, yes, but not the world we live in. Something similar happens with HD movies. Movies are historically rather low definition and blurred, and people seeing ones with sharper images say they can't shake the feeling that it's fake, or feels like a TV show. Basically, this is a particularly dumb manifestation of how weirdly manipulable people are with images. (don't get me started about Ray Rice. "oh my god he cold cocked her in an elevator!" "now that I see it on video it is so realer than when I knew that that is exactly what happened!!")