With the sheer amount of content, editing tools, and programs readily available to visual storytellers, there’s no shortage of gaffes that can be made during the pre-publishing process. Some of the ones that most immediately come to mind include failing to properly attribute a photographer or artist for their work one might’ve used for their own project, using incredibly cheesy, overused, or stereotypical iStock photos for brand marketing, doing a choppy Photoshop job on models’ images for a beauty magazine, and staging a photo to make a story seem ‘cooler’ than it was in actuality. As unoriginal as using Stock images for advertising can be, and as questionable as over-editing magazine images is, I’d consider the blurring of lines between truth and fiction in nonfiction storytelling - namely journalism - the greatest visual storytelling sin. Why is this? I wouldn’t say that using Stock photos is a sin, so much as uncreative. Photoshop, or rather the overuse of it (particularly in the health and beauty industries), has certainly given cause for many impressionable viewers to question their own appearance and self-worth (often equating the two), but seems to be an expectation in advertising. However in an industry like journalism where honesty, fairness, and balance are the key pillars (though the current political climate may suggest otherwise), doctoring or staging a photo in such a way that makes it anything less than genuine goes against these standards. The New York Times reported in 2015 that during that year’s World Press photo competition, a significant amount of entries were disqualified from the contest due to “manipulation or excessive digital post-processing.” In conjunction with Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, World Press also surveyed photographers who entered the photo competition and found that over 50 percent of news photographers who had participated in the survey admitted that they occasionally stage photos - even though it goes against the rules stipulated by most major news services. The researchers also hypothesized that “some news photographers might have responded thinking of portrait assignments, rather than news stories.” I reference the following photo faux pas in my Module 5 Ignite presentation, originally taken (and edited) by Reuters freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, who committed the sin of excessive photo alteration. In short, his 2006 photos depicting dark, billowing smoke clouds in Beruit, Lebanon resulted in what was known as “Reutersgate” - Hajj was fired from his position for making significant edits to his images of the Lebanon War. By darkening parts of the image and adding extra smoke clouds and missile flares, he added more drama to the war zone - which really needed no extra damage depicted - and let readers believe that what was presented was reality. Sophie J. Nightingale, Kimberley A. Wade, and Derrick G. Watson, authors of the Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications article “Can people identify original and manipulated photos of real-world scenes?” argue that most people do not have the ability to detect whether a “real-world” image has been digitally altered or not. This is a compelling conclusion because in a world where “Fake News” isn’t just a Trump-ism but also a critical issue in a fast-paced digitally-savvy society, it seems that it will be harder still to know what is real and what isn’t. Nightingale, Wade, and Watson write, “In the digital age, the availability of powerful, low-cost editing software means that the creation of visually compelling photographic fakes is growing at an incredible speed … the question of whether people can identify when images have been manipulated and what has been manipulated in the images of real-world scenes remains unanswered.”
Given that journalists and news photographers rely on the newsworthiness of their stories’ content and imagery for readership, readership that ultimately keeps the papers in business, we know that obtaining images with the most shock or wow value is the end goal. Or, as MediaShift writer Nicole Dahmen writes in her article “How to Do Better Visual Journalism for Solutions Stories,” photos that leave a lasting impression is what they want - after all, the stories with the most compelling images are often the ones that make the front page. But there shouldn’t be a fine line between truth and alteration. Digital editing is a tool to be used sparingly, and not to enhance an already-compelling story. Works Cited Dahmen, N. (2017). How to Do Better Visual Journalism for Solutions Stories. Retrieved September 22, 2019, from http://mediashift.org/2017/11/visually-reporting-solutions-stories-newsrooms-classrooms/. Hajj, A. (n.d.). Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut’s suburbs. August 5, 2006. Many buildings were flattened during the attack. Photograph. Mallonee, L. (2015, July 29). Infamously Altered Photos, Before and After Their Edits. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.wired.com/2015/07/bronx-documentary-center-infamously-altered-photos-edits. Nightingale, S. J., Wade, K. A., & Watson, D. G. (2017, July 18). Cognitive Research Journal. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from http://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-017-0067-2. Staging, Manipulation and Truth in Photography. (2015, October 16). New York Times. Retrieved from https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/staging-manipulation-ethics-photos/.
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