Geez, do we have to preach Photoshop ethics AGAIN?
You’ve all seen the story by now, posted by Poynter’s Jim Romenesko and tweeted a zillion times this morning: Over the weekend, the Dominion Post of Morgantown, W.Va., ran a photo that had been heavily edited with Photoshop.
Here is the original picture, taken by Martin Valent of the West Virginia Legislative Reference and Information Center:
Yes, that center would be one that reports to the state legislature. Meaning this is basically a government handout photo.
However, the Dominion Post has a policy I’ve not seen anywhere else. During political season, it runs no news photos of politicians running for re-election. And, in this case, that includes both of the standing men and the short blonde woman in back.
As a result of this policy, here’s the version of this photo the Dominion Post ran Saturday on page one:
The quote that’s gotten so much mileage this morning came from Ben Adducchio and Emily Corio of West Virginia Public Broadcasting:
“I’ve never seen anything like this on a newsworthy article like this, never. This is beyond my comprehension,” Valent said.
“That’s beyond the press standards in my opinion. A photo is a photo — it is the reality. It represents what is being captured.”
Here the photos are again, side-by-side:
Dominion Post editor Geri Ferrara simply reiterated the paper’s policy to WVPB:
In the newspaper, the photo caption includes the term “photo illustration” to indicate the photo had been changed.
Ferrara said because this is the election season, she is surprised someone would question the decision to remove the delegates from the picture.
I’m disappointed Ferrara is “surprised.” Because more importantly than any arbitrary policy on her part — or on the part of her publisher — this kind of photomanipulation is unethical. Period. Regardless of a disclaimer in the caption.
We’ve covered Photoshop ethics many, many times here in the blog. Here are just a few of them:
- Several papers Photoshopped extra sky into their page one Barack Obama inauguration photos.
- Washingtonian magazine may have gone overboard with this cover shot of Obama.
- Many folks thought this photo of Michael Jackson was Photoshopped. But I don’t think it was.
- The New York Times Sunday Magazine had to pull back this story after it was proven to contain manipulated photos.
- Here’s a photoshopped picture from the Iranian government that was pretty funny.
- It’s not just the Iranian government, though. The U.S. Dept. of Defense does this as well.
- Here’s a guy in Seattle who got carried away with Photoshop effects and toning, as opposed to manipulating actual objects in the picture.
- One of the most famous photos of all time was manipulated — in pre-Photoshop days. Read about it here.
- Photomanipulation will be a lot easier with Photoshop CS5, thanks to the new “content-aware fill” tool.
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UPDATE - 4:15 p.m.
Nicole Bogdas of the Des Moines Register asks:
I may be totally out on a limb here, but couldn’t they have just NOT RUN THE PHOTO?
Yep. That’s what they could have done. And perhaps should have done.
Or, they might have tried this:
Granted, that’s weird as hell. But so is the paper’s policy. I’d argue this kind of manipulation is more honest that what the Dominion Post chose to run.
May 19th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I may be totally out on a limb here, but couldn’t they have just NOT RUN THE PHOTO?
May 19th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I’ve asked the National Press Photographers Association Advocacy Committee or a local NPPA rep to reach out to Geri Ferrara on the finer points of ethics of digital photography. Makes you want to say “huh?”
May 19th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
This is something I rarely advocate, but … this newspaper has an editor, and perhaps also a publisher, who should be not be in the news business, permanently.
It’s not just a matter of falsifying the photo. The underlying policy is amateurish and asinine. Not running photos of anybody who’s running for re-election? WTF?
May 19th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
There were ways around this, even for a small newspaper. They could have cropped out two mug shots from the photo and then you’ve avoided the issue entirely. As it is, running that particular photo on A1 of any newspaper is a poor decision. There was an alternative - the mug shots - that was definitely less labor-intensive than removing all those people.
I also agree with the sentiments about the editor’s lack of responsible news judgment anyhow. The responsibility of an editor is make sure that the news gets covered in a fair and unbiased manner. By refusing to run images of your folks up for re-election, you are being biased toward those running for the first time. I think this editor needs to go back to basic reporting 101. I hope NPPA does reach out to her and tells her why this is wrong.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
I think Megan wins the point of the day for working labor-intensive into the conversation.
This work was so ridiculously time consuming how could anyone justify it? Ethics aside, this was a waste of time that could have been better spent finding a different way to present the story.
May 19th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
As a newly anointed West Virginia University alum, I’m just appalled.
May 20th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Why not just crop the photo into mugs?
May 20th, 2010 at 9:20 am
This story is certainly making the rounds.
This is the result of visual illiteracy. Plain and simple.
An enlightened editor, or any journalist for that matter, will treat photographs just like any other news content. If photo reportage is held to the same ethical standards as words, these types of transgressions just wouldn’t occur. When you treat photographs like window dressing for text instead of actual news content, you are bound for trouble.
Honestly, using that grip-and-grin picture at all, even as it was submitted, is a waste of precious editorial space. Readers gain absolutely nothing from that picture. What public interest is served by publishing such tripe? Cropping into mug shots is no better. Use the space for photographs that actually communicate something useful.
I’m appalled at the way some publications treat their audience, then claim to not understand what all the fuss is about.
May 20th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Saw an exhibit of photos years ago — may have been at the Newseum — that had photos done the same way by the Soviets. Cropping out certain individuals from the parade photos. Not making comparison AT ALL. Just an interesting note.
May 20th, 2010 at 11:56 am
I was interviewed for this story. What they left out is that the NPPA Digital Code of Ethics states that it is unethical to alter a photo in a way that changes the editorial content of a news image. The legislators in the photo were co-sponsors of the bill being signed and so were newsworthy. If a newspaper’s vital function in a democracy is to provide an accurate account for the historical record, then what happens when images are altered to suit the wims or political ideology of the publisher or editor?
May 20th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
The policy itself doesn’t pother me so much because, even if it’s a little silly, at least it’s consistent and makes some sense. Sort of like a throw back to the fairness doctrine (with the exception that it covers no one, equally).
However, I don’t understand why this was such an important photo to run. It’s not like this was some piece of stunning photography that added anything to the story. Why cross an ethical line to cover another? Especially when it’s on a photo this trivial.
Makes you wonder how many other times this paper has done something like this.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:18 am
My blog has a new policy, inspired by the Dominion Post.
…
That’s right, we’re going to only cover lame duck politicians, so as not to offend anybody. Arlen Specter, Jim Bunning, Bart Stupak? Today’s your lucky day. I need to cover Congress, so you’re getting in.
…
Anyway, in all seriousness, the Dominion Post put more thought into removing that background than they did their silly policy, which has the effect of not telling the full story. Morgantown, W.Va., your newspaper of record isn’t the complete record.
May 21st, 2010 at 9:27 am
Scott Bryant calls this “visual illiteracy.” I find that funny. My first newspaper was about an hour’s drive south of Morgantown. And one thing we knew was that a lot of our potential readers were, well, illiterate. People at the paper were involved in literacy programs.
Now we have one of the state’s more prominent newspapers doing something really, really dumb because of a policy that the paper’s leadership carried to an unethical extreme. It would’ve been easier, and far more ethical, to just not run the photo than torture a documentary news image.
Besides that, the photo’s just a glorified grip-and-grin. Papers in Grafton and Sutton might run those big on their front pages, but The Dominion-Post? They have the ability to do better. Or at least, those of us who’ve committed the act of journalism in West Virginia would think so.
Readers will begin to question every image The Dominion-Post runs, wondering if it’s contorted to meet an internal policy or skew a story somehow.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Incredible. There were a number of ways to approach using ’some’ of the photo as mentioned above. This (poorly rendered) PSD solution is ridiculous.
Scary times, scary times.
May 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Growing up in Charleston and having worked for the Daily Mail, I’ve always thought that the DP was incredibly weak visually. What little did I know of the extent.