Good practice in the news profession is to label the images photo
illustrations if they've been tampered with beyond an ephemeral point
more or less defined by what a busy news jock would pull off in the
darkroom.
So Alan's inserting a basketball where there was none, or even
removing a string of electrical cable inconveniently in the middle of
a blown-out section of the backgroud, are both no-nos in the trade.
But removing the power cable seems to me to be an order of magnitude
less offensive than inserting a basketball where nary there was one
before or after.
Alan seems to have had too much time on his hands, quite honestly.
Most news jocks wouldn't have time to much with the images as much as
inserting a basketball, although, as most of us know, removing a
power cord doesn't take more than a few moments.
As for editorial? Well, news and editorial aren't quite the same,
news having slightly more of a cachet of "truth" about it. And with
the introduction of the advertorial so many years ago now, people are
getting to be less and less able to discriminate. I'd say generally
editorial seems to still cling to a patina of "truth" at least to
differentiate itself from advertising, where nothing is particularly
believable. At least in the news magazines, I think that's holding
conceptually.
That, of course, is why people get so upset when Time messes with its
covers. They still, poor gullible souls, somehow expect it to be
telling the truth, when it hasn't done so for longer than Fox news
has been lying.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
http://e-and-s.instaproofs.com/
