Is it just me? or is this person smoking something?

It does seem a bit of a stretch to me to call that being published. On the other hand if all it takes is getting a photo published in a paper or magazine then it is really does not say much about a persons photography in any event. I have had a number of photos published in both magazines and newspapers, nothing real special about the shots they just happened to match stories that were being published.

Agreed--it's intentionally misleading.

Wow, that REALLY stinks. It is false advertizing in every sense of the word.

I agree: buying an ad that includes one of your photos and then claiming to be "published" is, at a minimum, rather misleading. Like you, I understand "published" to mean that there was an editor involved, somebody who is not you, and who wasn't being paid to make a decision to publish you. I've been paid, and I've submitted stuff that was accepted and published without remuneration. But there was always an editor involved who was free to say no, and who didn't get anything from saying yes.

This seems especially squirrelly since, if you are willing to be humble about your work, it's drop-dead easy to be truly published in neighborhood news supplements, etc. These outlets pay little or nothing, and they're desperate for content, so it ain't like making the cover of National Geographic or appearing in the New York Times. But it's legit. (It can even be fun and satisfying.)

What I am wondering is, why does anybody NEED to claim to have been published? I've never been asked by a potential photography client if my work has been published or where.

Being "published" typically means that an image of yours was purchased and published in a book or periodical. How do you know that this photographer hasn't been published outside of an image in the paid ad that you speak of? I've been published multiple times but I've never received a request for the list of images or publishers. BTW, people do a lot of questionable stuff without the benefit of smoking anything.

You'll also see things that are similar during political campaigns. Many times a TV ad will state something similar to "The Times says 'Prop 1 is what this state needs'", when in fact the only place that the paper in question states that is in a printed ad taken out by the very organization pointing to the claim of support.

This sounds like it's out of the book "4 Hour Work Week". The suggestion in part of the book was to rent out a room at a university, invite some people, and then you could advertise that you "spoke at x university". I think they just adapted it to publishing photography.

What I am wondering is, why does anybody NEED to claim to have been published? I've never been asked by a potential photography client if my work has been published or where.

It is all about marketing and hype, especially for wedding photography....when brides see "being published in X" they automatically assumes the photographer is good and willing to pay more.. same reasoning applies to the words "award winning". They see those and they'll pay more even thought that award was at a local strip mall.

That is why you see a lot of wedding photographers wanting to be "published" and "won awards"
I see a lot of photographers that say they are published, but don't mention that it was in some wedding microblog with 10 followers....but i guess at least that is still more honest than buying an ad and then saying they are published.

How do you know that this photographer hasn't been published outside of an image in the paid ad that you speak of?

Let's just say I know this for a fact :)

Publication is often thought of as having work shown by others in some sort of book, journal, website ect. There's broader definitions of the word. In this instance the word is being used in the broad technical sense for an audience that usually thinks of the word in the, book, journal, website sense. In legal language publish is often used in place of words like convey, tell, show and all sorts of other communication of something. I used it once here when explaining commercial use of someone's likeness and many people got caught up in the third party type definition. I wasn't trying to be deceitful though. I use words like display now because too many people don't know that the word publish has these other meanings.

From law.com... "v. to make public to at least one other person by any means."

See also...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication