chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

I was taught, in a formal setting, if you want to know where a paper's coming from politically, go straight to the editorial page. Still a valid method, although when that "page one" article in one paper goes to page 23 in the other, well, that is a different but effective way of slanting the news, eh? But when I was taught this concept there were thousands of "dailys" (late 70's...and we knew they were dying back then!) to choose from. Not so anymore, but the FACTS are always there...maybe obfuscated, but to the discerning reader evident. A huge part of my education in journalism/Comm was *how* to read any given article. Now, when the facts are not presented at all, we have a problem. ;0( This is a really good thread.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

I was not talking about subjective observations, I meant flat out misrepresentations and facts

MW

Over the last few years I have seen a number of “incidents” caught on a cell phone that seemed to say one thing and seen the same event from the point of view of another cell phone or security cam or body cam freon a different point of view. It is not unusual for the “story” to look different when seen from a different location. Whether still or video the image is always selective.

It is no big secret that several humans watching an event be it a runner sliding in to second or a killing can differ in their conclusion. I would think that one of most important thing to instill with regard to journalistic ethics is a sense of journalist’s cognitive limits. Just standing a few feet in different direction can alter perceived truth.

bittermelon

I remember this story, it's about lawyers but the idea remains the same. One of our Supreme Court Justices (a female, but I forgot which one), when she was in law school, once bragged to her mother that she scored in the 97 percentile in her ethics class. Her mother, who was a teacher, snorted:

"But look who you are comparing yourself to."

rplain1 Loc: Dayton, Oh.

The period I was thinking of was a bit earlier - the 50's. And at that time, stories weren't buried in one and
on the front page in the other. Of course you could go to the editorial page, but my point was that you could
not tell from the new stories themselves. The coverage wasn't always the same because one was a morning paper and the other an afternoon paper. So what the morning paper as the headline story might not be played up as much in the afternoon depending on what had happened during the day. How times have changed.

User ID

You were a reporter ? Surely you know to read your text before clicking “send”.

User ID

Thaz a gem !!!

Reminds me of a more allegorical tale, in which God and Satan are having a major dispute and God threatens “I’ll sue you !” ... to which Satan replies “Really ? And just how many lawyers do YOU have in YOUR realm ?”

iamimdoc

Didn’t Mark Twain say something to the effect that if you don’t read newspapers you were uninformed and if you do read newspapers you are misinformed

Bubbee Loc: Aventura, Florida

I applaud both you, the main teacher, and the school for making 'ethics' an important part of their program!
I cringe when I see how unethically people and events are exploited negatively by the news media. I empathize with the hurt
and damage they often do to unsuspecting individuals, whose privacy they invade. Many kudos to you. Teach them the Golden Rule!

bejamin Loc: South Texas

This has been one of the best set of "posts" I have ever read. I hope the class turns out as well as the OP wants it to. It can provide a great sense of ethics and honesty! Maybe these kids can learn to think for themselves.

Dannj

“Teach them the Golden Rule!”

Yes! The Golden Rule and the Rule of Thirds all in one course😊

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thanks to all who have replied. I have added the new resources that have been suggested to my list and will forward them to the main teachers for their resource banks. R.G., I failed to acknowledge your thoughtful response earlier, so thank you very much.

And...let me reiterate that the credit for this content goes completely to the team of professional teachers who lead these students. They are the most effective team of any kind that I have ever worked with, and it is an honor to count them as friends as well as colleagues. I would wish for everyone to have a group like them with whom to work in retirement. Your kind words will be relayed directly to them.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

What will the kids be writing about? Are there any guidelines as to the subject matter such as school events, life in the school, sports or other extracurricular activities, current events in your geographic area, controversial issues in the school or in town?

What do they know about the technical aspects of photography?

What about BASIC journalism like the 5- Ws, the concepts of "yellow or tabloid journalism as opposed to good reportage, caption writing, and how the editorial and the "photo-department integrate and interact at a newspaper.

Knowing this would help me make practical suggestions.

I worked as a stringer for several New Your City papers in my younger days, I shot documentary still photographs in Vietnam and did 3 years on staff at a daily Montreal newspaper during a time of political unrest before going back to commercial work.

When I first started out the basic tool was a 4x5 press camera with a fixed lens- if you wanted close up view of events, riots, fires, accidents, political rallies, ribbon cuttings, crime scenes or folks sunning themselves on the beach you had to walk into the action- that was what press-cards were for- gaining admission to restricted places and crossing police and fire lines- within reason. If you needed a wide shot- you walked back, claimed a fire escape or held the camera over your head and prayed.

What I learned is that editors want pictures that tell the story or at least, help to tell the story and reinforced the copy. I don't remember anybody concerned about optical distortion or image compression due to telephoto usage even when we went to medium format at finally 35mm with a pool of many lenses.

I don't remember any assignment editor asking us to fake or exaggerate anything or any of my colleagues approaching any job with that in mind. Back in the day, there was a policy that a FILE PHOTO had to be indicated as such. We would shoot dozens of motor-driven images of politicians and oftentimes the editor's wold choose a scowl, a smile, or a nasty sidelong glance to goodly or badly characterize the subject! They could change the "story" just by cropping something or someone out. Sometimes a telling image was messed up in the composing room so the image would fit into a predetermined column/line space- aggravation for the photographers. These incidents, however, were seldom the case- ethics and good craftsmanship were observed.

Remember, I was not a full-fledged "photojournalist", I was shooting NEWS! In my perception, a true photojournalist creates a body of work in which photography is the main element and may be supported by some copy.

Nowadays, I don't know if I could survive, mentally, as a news shooter. The entire media scene is been upended. Many folks can not differentiate between the New York Times and the Enquirer- sad to say. If your young students learn that difference and they are enabled to separate the wheat from the chaff, the truth for the lies, the facts from the hyperbole and learn how to handle social media with ethical and intelligent behavior, you will have given them a gift that will last a lifetime and who knows?- you may encourage a few real photojournalists.

Nowadays, Hig School Juniors are quite sophisticated- you will enjoy the experience.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

These are all good questions Ed. These kids are students at our STEAM high school, so they have had art classes each year. Their freshman art teacher, who has moved to a new assignment, was a photographic artist, so he had them doing some photography then. Last year, they designed and built pinhole cameras and completed an art project with those cameras. They used photographic paper both for the negative and for the final positive print, so they have a basic understanding of exposure, and they have been working on composition with all of their art assignments. This will be the first assignment using a "real" camera, even though they have been using their smartphones to create images that are part of the many presentations that they do. So they are by no means uninitiated. There will be no requirement that they learn or use manual exposure at this juncture, which is good, because they will be using mostly Nikon D3100 and maybe D3500 cameras, and I've not found those to support manual mode particularly gracefully.

Their regular teacher will be starting the semester and I will be coming in after about a week and a half. Depending on how quickly she returns, I'll be teaching them lighting, editing, and ethics. If she is out more than two weeks (very likely, I think), then I've committed to be available to handle additional days and topics. And I have a good relationship with the other five teachers as well as some prior exposure to this project, so I'm definitely not living in fear around it.

These folks are not journalism students, per se. This project is used to learn about teamwork, assigned tasks within the team, fulfilling responsibilities, and working against hard deadlines. Of course, there is other content to support learning in each of the core academic areas. The teacher I am substituting for teaches computer science (which is using the editing software in this project) and engineering (which is project management).

In terms of content of the newspapers, that will be decided as part of the flow of the project. The students will be given an English assignment to write an essay, which they will learn later will become a candidate for an editorial essay in the newspaper. The teams will select among the essays written by each of their members to pick one that will be the "topic of the time" around which the edition will be built. Research will then be done to develop factual articles for other sections of the paper. So no...these will not be campus newspapers as we know them, but will be much more like good community newspapers.

Classes will be conducted remotely for the first four weeks or so, with some uncertainty after that. About 25% of the kids have already indicated that they will be choosing to continue with remote learning. That is certain to complicate the learning process somewhat, because these projects have previously been designed to depend on collaborative work time and massive amounts of interaction. I have not yet been brought up to speed on details of all of the adjustments that have been or will be made to work with the revised environment. I'm sure that there will be less of some things that I remember and more of some new things. I'll just have to wait and see on some of that.

I don't plan to post day-by-day updates and reports here, but will commit to providing a look back in a few weeks when it's all history.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Cell phones haven't changed the concept. Cell phone photographers have found ways to avoid, ignore, or reveal lack of knowledge of the concepts of photo ethics.
--Bob