And This is Why Photo Editors are Important

The Washington Times ... well ... read for yourself. 

Good grief.

Ethics ... What Else?

Here we go again ... is The Washingtonian a journalism entity? Or did they step over a line? You decide. 

"Sex, Lies and Photoshop"

Jesse Epstein has an opinion piece - done as a video - on the New York Times site about, "Sex, Lies and Photoshop." It comes from a proposed law in France that would require magazines to delineate how much retouching has been done on the photos. Not overly deep, but worth five minutes of your day.

Okay, Maybe Palin's Not Supposed to be Pretty?

After the last post about how evil Newsweek was for not retouching a photo of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin comes this post about whether using Palin's legs as a framing device is sexist or not ... 

Note the number of comments - more than 14,000 as of Friday morning. 

This is reminiscent of the photo of a Navy wife published in the Virginian Pilot earlier this year.

Newsweek Gets Blasted for NOT Retouching a Cover

Well, this is an entertaining turn ... Fox News had a segment where Newsweek was taken to task for its cover photo of Sarah Palin ... and it is just bizarre ...

They claim that the cover photo should have been retouched because that's what the fashion magazines do. Umm ... yes, they do. But Newsweek is not a fashion magazine, it's a news magazine.

Granted, a news magazine that has made some serious mistakes with covers in the past, but still ... 

And for those curious as to how Barack Obama has appeared on magazine covers, here's a collection of them in one place. (From someone who probably has too much time on his hands.) I looked for a collection of McCain covers and didn't find one, but a Google image search turns up several. 

Biased Photographers

Honestly, this makes me pretty sick ... 

It is hard enough to do what we do everyday without having "colleagues" gloat about making subjects look bad. 

Paying for "Access"

When does a "news" photographer become a "commercial" photographer? Does an individual have the right to control the commercial usage of their image? Does a school have the authority to restrict who can and who can't profit, commercially, from a student's image?

In several states this issue has come up over the last few years, and now someone is proposing that newspaper pay a "token" amount to public school athletic associations to be able to resell published images.

It's a loaded question, but what do you think?

"Greedy Consumers" to Blame for Altered Images?

My academic and professional colleagues have been wringing their hands for the last few years or the idea of "user generated content," also known as "citizen journalism" (a phrase we all despise). News organizations are now dealing, on a regular basis, with video and stills submitted by readers and viewers.

In a piece the Chicago Tribune posted on this issue, Bob Steele, an ethics professor at DePauw University, says: 

We're not only gullible but we're becoming greedy as consumers ... That greed is manifested in putting out a lot of information that is not properly vetted and verified. That's dangerous. Not only does it erode the credibility of news organizations, but it also erodes the confidence of our society in what we see.

Greedy consumers ... an interesting thought, no?

And One More ...

Not as blatant as the Iranian missile mess, but maybe as sensational as some of Weegee's work ... further research has shown that the image of a baby with two legs casts on may not be what it originally was reported. 

I could launch into a bit about not knowing the sources of your information because of the automation of the news-gathering process, but most of you have heard this before ...

Too Many Missles

The headline here comes from Linda Epstein, who posted a link to this New York Times blog about a doctored image coming from Iran. (Really? A government doctoring images? Who would have thought that?)

Maybe now we know where Adnan Hajj is working ... 

Fox News Channel - Number One for Ethical Issues

Media Matters has a piece up on how two Fox News Channel hosts called two New York Times journalists "attack dogs" because of their reporting on the channel's lead in the ratings. But when they ran images of the two journalists, they doctored them ... significantly. 

Over-Photoshopping

Mindy McAdams, Flash Goddess, wrote about a blog post by Carrie Niland, who I know but didn't know had a blog ...

Anyway, Carrie takes on an over-toned image by a former intern that recently appears in Photo District News. The comments are as good as the entry.

This American Life and the Ethics of Journalism

I neither watch nor listen enough to Ira Glass' This American Life, and I really need to. Take a look at this four minute video illustrating one of the stories they did.

We'll be talking about ethics in the intro classes next week, this will come up. Why does the camera (or the pen and paper) become a barrier to our humanity? Should it?

(Thanks to Multimedia Shooter for the link, we're glad to have you back.)

Photoshop Disasters

Really, a blog totally devoted to Photoshop mistakes. I never get enough of these .... 

The End of a "Sacred Career"

A Chinese "news" photographer has admitted to altering a photo of antelope galloping past a new high speed train. The photo, which was circulated widely, had calmed some fears that the new rail line would affect wildlife. After being published around the country, someone noticed some odd lines on an enlarged version in a Beijing subway and started to investigate.

The photographer, Liu Weiquing, said, "I have no reason to continue my sacred career as a newsman. I am not qualified for the job."

What Color is Your Sky?

And what color does your advisor want it to be?

I keep checking my calendar to see if it's April 1, 1919 or something ...

Credentialing Bloggers

The Los Angeles Police Department may be giving bloggers from BlogHer.com a hard time in getting "media credentials" that they can use to get access to the GOP debate.

That's awkwardly phrased, I know, because it's not clear if they are blocking them from getting credentials or if they're putting them through the standard background check procedure or if they LAPD just doesn't have a procedure for online media.

Thoughts? Are bloggers "journalists?" How can you tell? If they are, do all bloggers get treated the same? Do bloggers associated with a "traditional" media outlet get treated differently? And why do we even let any government agency think that they can decide who is and who is not a journalist?

This, of course, comes on the heels of Gizmodo pulling a prank at CES just after they started allowing bloggers in ...

Would the AP or LA Times ever do that? Do the professional norms of "traditional" journalists set them above (or aside) "blogging journalists?"

I'm glad I don't have to credential anyone ...

And I thought Iowa was the Corny State ...

But, apparently, curators with the Wisconsin Historical Society are cornier. They have a collection of vintage postcards titled, "Exaggerated Postcards, 1900-." I assume that means they're still working on the collection.

But who knew corn could break a wagon? Or be ridden like a horse? Or that it could take a whole train car to move one ear of corn?

You can see the whole collection online, so if you need a reason to procrastinate, say you're researching faked photos and you can get away with this.

Filter Ethics

I've been sitting on this one for a while because I'm not sure how I feel about it. Part of me is angry, part annoyed and part ... well, just accepting.

CNN.com posted a video several weeks ago about a Scottish farmer who is refusing to sell his land to Donald Trump. Trump wants to build a golf course, the farmer says his family has lived there for generations and he has everything he wants. Trump claims he's stalling to drive up the price.

Good story, and being of Irish descent I tend to migrate to the little-guy stories like this. While watching the video, though, something didn't seem quite right. I've never been to Scotland, though I've spent time in Ireland. The skies in the video seemed ... very blue. Which was fine, until I noticed this sequence of images. Watch the way the "line" of blue moves.



Based on how the depth of blue never changes as the composition does, I suspect there was either a graduated filter dropped in front of the lens or this was punched up by an editor. Either way, in a news story, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this.

Thoughts?

Dilbert and Journalism

Scott Adams must have had a bad experience with a journalist based on today's comic strip.