HERE I AM

whats up.

Photo Ethics for Journalists

So this week rather than an uncontrollable rambling, I have a topic assigned to write about. I can’t promise it won’t turn into a rambling, though…

So in class, we were presented with a picture of a purrrty white flower. It was actually in a tutorial for the Mac program iPhoto. Anyway, in the tutorial, it showed that the flower was perfect except for a small black dot on one of the petals, and proceeded to teach us how to get rid of it. We then got into a discussion about editing photos as a journalist: Is it ethical?

In some cases, I think it is perfectly fine to edit photos. In the case of the flower, I think there is nothing wrong with editing the black dot out. Yes, you aren’t presenting the flower as it actually is. But the flower is not an event that happened in time. The flower wasn’t constructed on a graphics program – it does exist. So is it so wrong to enhance the visual? The context of the event captured by the camera was not altered at all. The photo of the flower after being altered speaks for itself, even if the black dot was edited out. It doesn’t change the story of the photo.

Pictures and visuals along with a news story apply a big impact to the audience and invoke a lot of emotion. Visuals combine to teach, entertain and persuade people. However, images can also offend, shock, mislead, stereotype and confuse. In the case that economic and political gains can be made by photo manipulations, I find it incredibly wrong to edit a photo. As a journalist, or photojournalist, you are trying to tell a story. A false or misleading photo presented to the trusting and naive audience has repercussions.  Many journalists have been fired from their jobs because of enhancing photos to the point that an entire event is false.

Brian Walski is an example of this. In 2003, Walski was covering the Iraq war and submitted a photo that was printed in the LA Times.

What the public didn’t know at the time was that the photo above was actually a photo constructed of two actual photos. In this case, the photo depicts an event much more grave then what actually happened. The soldier pointing a gun and yelling at a man holding a child is much more heart wrenching than what actually happened. This is something that did not happen, ever. The following are the two photos that were used to make the one above:

When comparing a photo of a flower with a situation like the one above, it seems like the flower doesn’t even matter. No damage was done with the editing of the flower. However, depicting such a situation like the one above causes people to believe something happened. It changed the entire story of the photo.

Some say that if you are editing a photo to be published in such a way that you used two separate photos, there should be a cutline under the photo telling the reader that you used such measures to produce the photo. In my opinion, editing a photo in such a way is so wrong that it shouldn’t be published under any circumstances. People aren’t picking up a newspaper to see something pretty and aesthetic. People are picking up a newspaper to know and understand what is going on in the world around them. Just because you can make more of an impact or make something look better with the placement of objects in a photo, does not mean you should take advantage of that technology. It manipulates the public, whether or not you write a cutline below the photo.

Does everything happen for a reason?

Recently I watched the movie Hotel Rwanda again. Although I have seen it before, it did not hit me so hard as it did when I saw it again. It reminds you of how the state of the world is in such terrible condition. You may run into people in your everyday life that you believe not to be good people. But after realizing that some people are capable of aiding in the murder of one million people due to the fact that they are a certain race, the people you see everyday who just sort of piss you off seem like they’re heaven-sent.

To even fathom the idea that people are simply that disgusting is unimaginable. I cannot process how people are so cold and heartless. Even calling them “cold and heartless” isn’t enough. It seems like there are no words to describe these people. They are poison to this world.

This really gets you thinking about the notion that everything happens for a reason. I have always been a believer in this. I like to think that out of every bad situation or experience I go through, I am a better person for it and I am one step closer to learning how to survive. When people come to me for advice, I usually remind them that things always happen for a reason.

If things do always happen for a reason, what good came out of the Holocaust? The Rwandan genocide? 9/11? Murders that happen every day? Suicide?

Maybe in little situations, things happen for a reason. Little life lessons. But out of everything mentioned above, what good possibly came out of it? After the Holocaust, the world said that never again would such a mass killing occur. How could the UN have screwed up so badly as they did with the Rwandan genocide? How could the world have turned a blind eye to everything that was happening?

As much as you want to remember those who died, it is not worth remembering how they died. They died in a dreadful way, and thinking about it sort of makes you come to the realization that there is little or no faith left in humanity. People have always fought wars and killed people and have condoned evil doing throughout our history, but you would like to think that at such an age where technology has come so far that people would be more level-headed.

So, as violence breaks out and grows in Kenya as I type this, don’t turn a blind eye to it. If you as a person have any sort of power, it is spreading knowledge. It may seem like nothing to you, but think about what you’re spending time on in your life. Are you obsessed with news stories about Britney Spears (which has to be the most unimportant topic I could think of), or are you talking to people about issues that actually matter? Many of you reading this are journalism students at Mohawk. What do you want your career to be about?

All these pictures have been taken in the past month.

Taken from http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Kenya-Elections/ss/events/wl/123007kenyaelections
/s:/ap/20080129/ap_on_re_af/kenya_election_violence;_ylt=Ah330iwzHCW.pDWvCfpxNKQV6w8F#
/080127/481/814f4ed35b0c4cc3a2bb7e106089234c