CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

If you want to be a photojournalist you have to depict the actual situation as it occurs. If the situation is racist or bloody or whatever, in whatever direction, you have to tell the story with your footage or shots.
It's the editors job to distort or choose what elements of the story to present - much like the majority of the press does today.
If my shutter is on fast and I get 100 shots in a few seconds of a politicians micro expressions, the editor can choose one that looks good or angry or older or whatever.
If you do your job to capture the reality you just have to live with the editors ethics.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I spent years doing photojournalism. One of the first things I learned was that "truth" could be altered by perspective. That was why I arrived hours early and "camped out" right on the wire! Being just a little bit off the wire could affect which nose apparently got there first in a tight race. That would not be intentional altering, but it happens. One of the big things when we switched from film to digital was the alterations that could be done after the fact. It was required that we do NO processing of images before submission. So we had to get everything right the first time. See the amount of alterations that get done in the name of "art" makes my journalistic heart skip a lot of beats. And I don't know if the youth of today understand the difference. I applaud you in what you intend to do and your opportunity to do it.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

I’m 30 and some of us do. Those of us who went to journalism school certainly do. The program I went to required a media law class but not an ethics class. However, ethics was discussed and drilled into us every course. I took the ethics class What disturbed me is that the print/ editorial students got it and some of the tv/radio got it. The students who didn’t see a lot of ethical issues were the ad/pr students.

williejoha

In reporting, The truth is the truth. Any bending in any way, shape or form is UNETHICAL. Photography as art can be anything it wants to be. IMHO
WJH

Dannj

“... deliberate dishonesty in the public domain is almost always undesirable and damaging.”

I have no experience in journalism and find your comments informative but I was surprised by the phrase I’ve quoted. Would you care to comment?
Thanks

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thanks to all those who have replied. Hopefully more will do so.

I appreciate the reference to journalism law vs. ethics. I will always remember a comment made by a friend (who was a lawyer) when I was preparing to respond to a ticket I had received for violating a crosswalk that was about to be entered by a pedestrian. (I was clearly in the wrong, but overgrown vegetation prevented me from seeing the pedestrian until it was too late to respond.) He wanted me to contest the ticket. I responded that I would not...I'd clearly violated the crosswalk. His reply was that "you have to remember that the law is not about right and wrong. It is about legal and illegal." I still paid the ticket, and he remained my friend.

Just as a little bit of context, let me say that I believe that while truth may not be known (to me), it is still truth. Even if I may disagree, it is still truth. Even consensus can be poor at revealing truth. Consider Galileo. For hundreds of years, the western consensus had been that the earth was flat and that the sun, moon, and stars all moved around the earth. This was a powerful consensus, and going against it carried severe penalties. Just ask Galileo. But he created an instrument that let him see and demonstrate that not only were some of the stars not stars, but that things did revolve around other things in the universe. His discovery led to a complete change in the way that we understand the universe. The fact that a number of people still believe that the earth is flat and that some still believe that everything moves around the earth does not change the actual design.

The surprising thing is that kids still hunger to know "truth." Perception as truth is neither natural nor comfortable for them. Now that doesn't mean that they are not willing to play with the truth, but in actuality, saying that perception is truth robs them of most of the fun of doing that. Last year, for instance, one group presented a photograph of a small drone as a photograph of a secret aircraft. Nice try, but it didn't last very long before the "scoop" was discredited.

Hopefully we can continue getting more good responses. And I realize that situational questions like the two that I posed can be troublesome. Many times it seems like just enough information has been presented to push you to an answer that you really didn't want to give. That's not my intent here. I'm really interested in what you think about those two situations which might or might not be harmless from an ethical point of view.

couch coyote Loc: northern Illinois

First let me say that I'm blown away by R.G.s deep analysis!!! The issue of intent is central to honest reporting, whereas it's only one of many "tools" if the purpose is artistic expression.

Second, there will always be a little photographer "bias", as we're individuals and see events through the lens of our own background and experiences. No conscious deception intended; just that none of us are blank slates. That brings up editorial oversight - maybe you don't send a photographer to do a feel-good piece on an animal shelter if you know he was mauled by a dog as a child, for example. Editor ethics are an additional layer of complexity, but one you face in getting to the end product.

1. Of course this depends on the situation. A fire story is easy: most viewers know that the police and firefighters will keep onlookers at a safe distance. We the public are just nosy and want to know what's going on, so we already expect a professional photographer to be using a long lens. The longer the better, just show us the drama!

A photographer (videographer) caught in an earthquake is in the middle of the action, but shouldn't lie by deliberately shaking the camera even more.


2. Thinking of breaking TV news here:
I think reporting of weather common to the area has to be straightforward, neither lightening nor darkening. People need the facts so they can make their own decisions (for example, whether to go to the basement during a tornado).

However - if your purpose is to warn the public of an imminent danger THEY'RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH, then you emphasize the danger. The story should clearly say, though, "We're warning you: stay away or die." Because sometimes it's right to try to protect people from their own cluelessness.


After-the-fact print reporting should be as shot, neither lightened nor darkened, because a photographer's job is to report, not dramatize. If the editor wants drama, they can always include interviews with people who recount their own dramatic stories. And an editor may direct the photos be printed darker, according to his own agenda. Again, it goes to intent.

The photographer has to offer the most ethical photo he can, knowing that it's subject to alteration by those higher up. That's just what happens when you're not at the top of the food chain. And if the photographer can't live with that, they go to work for someone who's a better fit with their own ethics.



One more thought on developing an ethical compass.
I think, with high schoolers, you're not going to be able to avoid the elephant in the room, the George Floyd tragedy. At what instant does recording an event step over the line into complicity by non-action? One may argue that the viewers had no ability to stop it. But that doesn't alter the question: would it have been more ethical to have tried and failed? Does a photographer - should a photographer - step out of his observer role and act?

If you open this can of worms (and why not, as it's ethics at it's most raw and immediate), you may want to look up the Kitty Genovese case. This isn't the first time bystanders have been thrust into an ethical dilemma. And - important to your lesson - apparently the New York Times reporting of her murder was flawed, and the newspaper refused to correct it. A knotty ethical problem in many ways.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thank you for your detailed reply. For some reason, I remember the Kitty Genovese case even though I was in junior high school when it occurred. There are some interesting and powerful parallels to the George Floyd case. I wonder if some of the same biases played in her case.

One important thing I have discovered while preparing for this is that there seems to be a fundamental difference between the tolerance for error in our own lives and choices versus the tolerance for error by others. It's just a lot easier to see shortcomings in others than in ourselves.

User ID

Recalling the “early PS days” there was an uproar about a Time or Newsweek cover because a meaningless anonymous passerby was cloned out to improve the composition.

IIRC it wasn’t even a news shot, just a candid personality shot to promote a lengthy biographic article about the person seen strolling along on the cover.

There was great hooglie mooglie and quasi righteous indignation about this “unethical” coverage. It’s quite plain that had the shutter been clicked at some other moment the scene would have appeared exactly as it appeared in the PS’ed version.

At the time, the cries of “unethical journalism” won out with both the pundits and joe public. But PS was new and “threatening” at that time and generated irrational hysteria. I do believe that today such editing of a cover illustration would not bring even a twitch of an eyebrow.

Today that shot would have been part of a ~20 frame burst. Perhaps half the frames might include a passerby. How is discarding the undesired frames rather than printing the whole burst any different from cloning out a passerby ?

I’m not really looking for an answer but it might be fodder for the newspaper class with the kids.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I'm all for social distancing and wearing masks. That said, I noted a couple of months ago instances where photographers used telephone lenses to compress the distance between persons in crowd photos, giving the impression that they were much closer together than they actually were.

Bob Werre

What hasn't been mentioned here, is that likely many of these students will end up working or contributing to pieces directed and paid for my PR firms. PR firms are tied to journalism and therefore use photography to their end. They might have an entirely different take on things. They might be hired by a client wanting to push their message to the public via the traditional media, or social media. I think the biggest example might have been the invasion of Kuwait. The exiled Kuwait's had PR firms lobbying to return the country to them meanwhile some where photographed in Discos partying away.
I've photographed tons of projects with the client's slant in mind. You see this happening in especially with the digital media's infomercials a few years ago, now it's social media. As an example...so is the project a new basketball gym for students or is it XYZ land developer trying to get the local newspaper's influence to help condemn property owned by older folks to build this gym, where he'll also make big dollars, not to mention his brother-in-law is on the school board! Is that oil pipeline running under a river going to result in improvements or a disaster?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

This is an interesting comment. To me, Public Relations is more like "human advertising," designed to present some entity in the best possible light, sometimes regardless of or in spite of truth. I worked for three different organizations during my engineering life (the last one had 5 different owners during the 17 years I was there), and they ranged from two of the finest to a couple of what at least seemed like the worst. It was fascinating to watch and be subject to the variation in the ways they handled truth and perception. One in particular was quite famous for having a guiding principle of "promise the customer whatever they want and apologize when we are not able to deliver" even if everyone know that it was physically impossible to meet the request. That company is no longer in existence, by the way.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

..."news" can be tweaked in *so* many ways. A crowd of 50 people can be made to look like 500 (how often do we see such depictions lately?) or a slice of a disaster may show the damage, but not show the surrounding *untouched* area. The photographer, as has been previously mentioned, is simply responsible for pictures...the editors put the articles together. That last is telling: an editor has much leeway in how pieces are put together. As a writer you might find a 'graph moved within the article (happened to me) or, better yet, the whole dang thing on page 23 (which may be even an *ownership* decision). What I'm saying is, there are levels of "ownership" within any news organization, and you, as the reporter/photographer are on the lowest rung. <shrug> That said, as a photo journalist, if you are armed with a *complete* ethics base, you will be able to resist the temptation to inflate your work. That, I think, is the goal when teaching the subject. The kids involved in this project are in for a treat and will use their experience the rest of their lives. I would love to see their output. Bravo.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

It would be difficult to think of vivid examples, and that's one of the problems. The effects of dishonesty in the public domain are subtle and insidious. But we shouldn't become complacent just because those effects aren't obvious or shocking, and we shouldn't underestimate how undesirable such dishonesty is, because the truth is it can have far-reaching effects. Taking fake news as an example, it would be wrong to dismiss it as something trivial or inconsequential because it's neither of those things. Fake news isn't doing anybody any favours. For a start it's creating a cloud of confusion where nobody knows what the truth is, and when the truth is reported it can go unrecognised or dismissed as just more fake news. The perpetrators of fake news have a lot to answer for. And what if repeated exposure to such dishonesty conditioned us to accept it as normal and something we should learn to tolerate? We're rightly indignant when blatant lying is revealed to us and we're entitled to expect honesty from our news media, but that expectation dies if repeated exposure to dishonesty conditions us into seeing it as normal.

User ID

150,000 dead is not obvious enough ?