Slashdot Mirror
Photographer Fired For Digitally Altering Photo
bewert writes "A sign of things to come? Is this kind of thing happening without anyone catching it? This short article notes that war photog Brian Walski was fired for combining elements from two photos to make one with 'better composition'.
Here is the 'Editor's Note' detailing the transgression. It's not really highlighted on their front page ;) I wonder how often this type of Photoshopping is done without anyone noticing it? To paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?"..." Another submitter points out an article examining digitally altered magazine covers. Slashdot has done several stories on unnoticeable digital alterations; here's 1, 2, 3 old stories to peruse.
If this were an artistic piece for a magazine, no problem. Hair on Christie Brinkley's upper lip, no problem.
A war photo that is altered so the depiction is inaccurate is unacceptable on any scale. There is not concrete place you can draw a line and say "this much alteration is okay, but this much changes the story".
News commentary can be editorialized by any anchor. Pictures and video have alway been held in higher standing for thier direct integrity. This will rais equestions.
The point is that _anything_ doctored cannot be considered news. If that became standard practice it would be so easy to abuse.
Pictures are taken as evidence to be an exact representation of what they are looking at. If you can't trust pictures in a newspaper or magazine, you can't trust the newspaper or magazine, period.
This was definitely the right decision.
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Photography is already biased enough depending on what you LEAVE OUT of the photo, or how you juxtapose certain elements, or use telephoto to change the size-distance ratio of objects. Use a long enough lens, and it looks like the kid running across the street is about to be bowled over by the tank, when in fact the tank is a block away.
Anything other than news photos and it's fair game.
It's a slippery slope. Once it's OK to alter photos as long as you preserve the "theme," all that's left is for a newspaper with a deluded idea of the "theme" of a photo to seriously alter a photo's contents. This already happens all the time with quotations being taken out of context and having phrases parenthetised for "clarity".
I strongly disagree for two reasons. One is that the paper already had a stated policy of no alterations, period. Once that policy has been adopted, they have to follow it. Two is that they chose the right policy. There has to be a bright, obvious line between what is allowable and what isn't. If you let a photographer alter things for artistic effect then somebody has to sit there and decide in each case whether the changes are just artistic or if they've distorted the truth. Only by having an objective standard of no alterations at all can you avoid that problem.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Yes, the modifications were mostly compositional, but there is a *very good reason* for the L.A. Times banning the alteration of photos: because once you do it, the only difference between minor compositional alterations and ones that change the content in more significant ways is *just a matter of degree*. In other words, once you cross that threshold, the amount of alteration or significance of the alteration that is permissible is only a matter of judgement, a moving line in the sand. Banning such alteration of photographs outright shows good judgement by the publisher and demonstrates their commitment against the falsification of photographic evidence.
Of course, this does nothing to prevent completely staged photographs, but at least it's something.
In one picture, the soldier is waving his hand and the guy with the baby is ignoring him; in the touched up one, the baby-carrier is looking at the soldier. That's a significant difference - what is this soldier doing, and is he getting any respect? In the first picture, it looks like his hand is up just to counter-balance himself as he's walking. In the composite, it looks like he's waving at people and they are dutifully following his orders.
I was the main non-sports fotographer for a newspaper in college & talked with my editor about this. Sure, you can digitally take out something as simple as a fence that's blocking a view, but then that implies that there is no fence to block the view (and thus no security/privacy barrier). And that's not the truth.
So, I agree with the editors here. No manipulation should be tolerated at all. The covers of magazines are different, though (and legally recogonized as different, too) - they serve as an attraction to buy the magazine, and not news reporting.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Rember O'Reilly made his name on inside edition, a tabloid news program. This is why Fox another tabloid news outlet loves him. No one thinks hes a intellectual hes just the clown of the moment, and any one watching Fox news has probably never heard of PBS let alone watched it.
As a former journalism student and someone who has been in print a few times in High School and College, I think I can say what part of the Big Deal is.
Journalism is supposed to be accurate and unbiased. In practice this rarely happens, but the theory is there. The paper has a policy forbidding the modifying of photos, and they enforce it.
It's similar to the honor code many schools use. Cheating only hurts the student in the long run, but it can still get them kicked out of the school.
The point is the moral and ethical code. Journalists have a moral imperative to report the truth, and any modification, any stretching of the truth is a step down a slippery slope towards outright lies and falsehoods.
The photographer was fired for good reason. A modified photo is fine as a piece of "art" but as journalism it brings the entire publication's integrity and honesty into question.
I could go on, but my hope is that the majority of the people reading this thread realize that what the photographer did was a violation. It's not like photoshopping a playboy shoot to remove a pimple. This is falsifying the news. It's a small fake, a minor tweak, but it's still presenting falsehood as reality.
And before you make a wise ass reply about the fallacy of journalistic integrity in the real world, keep in mind, I did say "In practice this rarely happens".
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I bet some of the cameras being used by the photographers don't have "red eye" reduction....
C'mon folks, let's look at this more critically.
Ok... red eye reduction removes something that wasn't there originally. Unless the person you took a photograph has bright red eyes you are removing something that the camera artifically inserted into the image. The same goes with removing lense flair, colour balance correction, etc. This is *totally* different than manipulating the image by adding or subtracting content.
Right, the original poster was just pandering to the mindless slashbots who see anything negative or the least bit suspicious as a part of a conspiracy by the RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft/Federal Government to outlaw Linux, kill babies, and enslave the world. What's nice about it this time is that for once, the little snide commentary comes in italics, as part of the posters words. Nine times our of ten, similarly paranoid remarks appear as the EDITOR's words. If you believe that this LA Times reporter violated his committment to journalistic integrity and OBJECTIVITY by using these photos, I suggest you take a closer look at Slashdot itself. The spin that gets put on the articles is just absolutely ridiculous.
On a side note... you might find it interesting to note that the United States Department of Defense wrote a memo entitled "An Assessment of International Legal Issues in Information Operations." Basically, the paper is a review of information warfare tactics, and an analysis of whether or not some aspects of information warfare violate the Geneva Convention and other international treaties regarding the rules of war. The report concludes that, "Similarly, it might be possible to use computer 'morphing' techniques to create an image of the enemy's chief of state informing his troops that an armistice or cease-fire agreement had been signed. If false, this would also be a war crime."
So, despite the fact that the government had absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with this story, even if they did, the government cannot digitally alter wartime photos because it violates the Geneva Convention. Granted, there are other things that one might be inclined NOT to trust the government for, but this is NOT one of them. Please move along...
-Matt
-Matt
Duke '05