But when they send you for an angle, they are asking for images that support their opinion. Opinion is NOT truth. When an newspaper sends one out, (and I agree it happens all the time) with a specific "angle" in which to cover a particular event, they have compromised their own integrity right from the start. A journalist really shouldn't be picking sides. A journalist shouldn't be leading the story or a part of the story. They should be covering the story. Now if you want to label it opinion, write what you want. The fact that so many biases exists says more about how far journalism has sunk (in my opinion) than any single thing to which I could point.
In my previous example I didn't say breaking the window was a crime. FACT one guy broke the window and took the TV. That is the truth. Anything else changes history. Courts might convict him or her, or they might not, but they still took the window.
Photoshop makes things easier, but doctoring photos has been around almost as long as photography. It used to be expensive, difficult and beyond the means of most to accomplish, but it still could have been and was done. People have always been flawed and ethics has never been perfect. Just because it was taught doesn't make it any more or less true.
I was taught many things as truth, but were not so in school. They were false when taught, no matter how they were represented, and they are false today and will be false to the end of time and beyond.
There is also lying, and as my dad said "not telling the whole truth". His words were clear. Telling only part of the truth with the intent to miss lead is as inethical as a falsehood. Finding a single sign in a crowd of thousands to smear the entire group in an article is common, and the sign being there is the truth. It WAS there. Yet to tell the whole story the rest of the truth was the people around that sign protesting its content, asking them to get rid of it, asking them to leave, and peacefully engaging in open debate in opposition. Showing the whole context is the truth for a reporter. A bias reporter would either leave out the sign all together by cropping, or doing a close up on that sign. A journalist would show the sign, but show the opposition to it in its context.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Psychological Motives for Pursuing Photography
From: Herschel Mair <herschel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, September 01, 2011 8:33 am
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Photographers get fired because they're not allowed to "Doctor" images post shooting.... But how much more "Doctored" and even sinister, is a photograph when the biased photographer changes his position in order to exclude a scene that contradicts the story he's trying to tell. Here the evil is untraceable so I suppose you would say that was acceptable and would not call that photograph "Doctored"?
No magazine will send you on an assignment without telling you the "Angle" they want the story from.
Picture a scenario where a hard-core, right-wing paper and a hard-core, left-wing paper each send a photographer to cover the same event. They'll come back with completely different images.
Now we know, logically, that if two pieces of data contradict each other they can either both be lies or one can be true but they can't both be true...
So where is the absolute truth here?
With any photography you can make up any story you like and then selectively shoot images to make the story look true.
Look at the amazing work of Leni Riefenstahl who made Hitler look like a savior to the German population. She had no digital cameras and no Photoshop.
BTW, I have read Chapnick's book, even taught using it as a text book... and I found it rather naive and sometimes a little too sentimental. Some of the greatest photojournalism which was accepted as truth when it was published has subsequently been found to have been "Doctored"
Herschel
On 8/31/11 11:05 PM, Gregory wrote:Again, I have to agree. Why do you think Photojournalists get fired on the spot when it’s discovered they doctored an image.Two more books worth looking into; Truth Needs No Ally by Howard Chapnick and The First Casualty by Phillip Knightly.Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 8:01 PMSubject: RE: Psychological Motives for Pursuing PhotographyIf truth is flexible then no form of society can function. One man sees it as the absolute truth that he is entitled because of mistreatment to break that window and take a TV because of a past wrong. The owner of the shop who paid for the tv will most certainly think he stole it. FACT the first guy broke the window and took the TV. That was the truth. Neither perspective or opinion will change the fact he broke a window and took a tv.Capturing what is really there isn't that hard, but its also no more difficult to make a photograph lie. With digital imaging its even easier.
