Ethics
COM 241
Photography I
Ethical foundations
• Utilitarian
– Do what is the “greatest good for greatest
number of people”
– Show horrors of war, tragedy of accidents,
hardship of poverty
– Rationale: showing pictures of accidents might
cause voters to pass laws requiring air bags, etc.
In response to starvation in
Somalia, the U.S. sent in
peace keeping forces to stop
fighting between war lords
and help distribute food. A
U.S. soldier was killed by
followers of one of the war
lords and dragged through
the city streets. This picture,
taken at great personal
danger to the photographer,
resulted in a quick reversal
of U.S. policy and troops
were pulled out of Somalia.
Paul Watson / Toronto Star
This photo by Stanley
Forman of collapsing
fire escape was
published on the front
page of hundreds of
papers across the
country. The women
fell to her death while
the child miraculously
survived. After this
picture ran Boston’s
fire safety laws were
changed. Stanley
Foreman / Boston
Herald-American
Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for this photo of a Vietnamese colonel
executing a suspected Viet Cong sympathizer on a Saigon street. During the
war the South Vietnamese were our allies but this photo showed cruelty of
the officer. This photo is credited with helping to change public sentiment
about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Eddie Adams / Wide World Photos
Opposing views
• Absolutist
– Individuals have right of privacy
• Golden rule
– “do unto others as you would have them do
unto you”
– Put yourself in place of grieving parent
This picture was shot
when photographer
arrived on scene of an
accident in which
teenage boy had driven
his new car into a lake
and had drowned. The
photographer noticed
this young women, a
friend of the victim,
crying over the tragedy.
David Longstreath / The
Daily Oklahoman
Coverage of tragedies
• Photos provide information
– Pictures of grief personalize the news
• In a way statistics can’t
• On the other side there’s the privacy of the
friend, relative grieving
The Pantagraph/STEPHANIE OBERLANDER
Surrounded by family and friends, Amanda Hamm grieves during the funeral service
for her three children Monday morning (Sept. 8) at Memorial Park Cemetery in
Clinton.
Mourning a life - Friends and relatives of Luis Alberto Vital, 17, mourn during a funeral
service in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Oct. 24. Vital was among the victims of a shootout
during a teen's birthday party. More than 12,000 people have died this year in Mexico's
drug war. Raymundo Ruiz / AP
Role of photographer
• To inform public, record the news
• But what about when photographer witnesses
crime, accident, tragedy
–
–
–
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Person stealing TV set
Child caught in an auto accident
Apartment building on fire
Person committing suicide
• Pennsylvania State
Treasurer Budd Dwyer
was facing a 55-year
prison sentence for taking
kickbacks when, during a
press conference, he
pulled out a gun, placed it
in his mouth and pulled
the trigger. This is the first
shot transmitted by AP.
Two more followed, one
of Dwyer putting the gun
in his mouth, and the other
just after he pulled the
trigger.
This photograph showing a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture
won Kevin Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. The child was
crawling toward a United Nations food camp about a kilometer away. No one
knows what happened to the child, including the photographer who left the
scene after chasing the vulture away.
Pictures containing dead bodies
• Some refuse to publish
– Cite respect for victim’s family, privacy
• Others publish
– Benefit society even though family may object
– Reduce swimming accidents, stricter
enforcement of city codes, etc.
This is a photo that ran on
the front page of the Detroit
Free Press of a firefighter
carrying a dead child from
a home in which seven
brothers and sisters locked
alone inside had died in a
fire. In Detroit tradition, the
doors and windows in the
house had been barricaded
or barred to keep burglars
out. Bill Eisner / Detroit
Free Press
After a major series
of indictments,
arrests and
allegations, Miami
City Commissioner
Arthur E. Teele Jr.
apparently couldn’t
take it anymore. On
July 27, 2005, he
walked into the
Miami Herald
lobby, waited long
enough for police to
arrive, then pulled
out a Sig Sauer
pistol and shot
himself in the head.
This is John Hart’s photo that
ran in the Bakersfield
Californian of lifeless 5-yearold Edward Romero, lying in
plastic body bag and
surrounded by grieving family
members. The paper received
400 phone calls, 500 letters
and a bomb threat. The editor
subsequently ran an apology
to readers. Number of
drownings in the Bakersfield
area dropped from 14 to 2 in
the month after the photo ran.
John Hart / Bakersfield
Californian
Matters of taste
Most papers
published this photo
of former vice
president Nelson
Rockerfeller “giving
the finger” to a
crown of hecklers at
an airport in
Binghamton, New
York. Don Black /
Bihnhamton Press
and Sun-Bulletin
• This photo of convicted
child-murderer Richard
Allen Davis was taken
following the jury’s
guilty verdict in the trial.
The photo, which ran on
Bay Area papers’ front
pages generated over
1,200 messages (e-mails,
fax, letters, etc.) to the
San Jose Mercury News,
817 favorable, 481
unfavorable.
Setting up photos
• In this photo, photographer
suggested to fireman that
going over to pool and
splashing water on his
head would make nice shot
– Initially photographer
suspended w/o pay
– Later reassigned to noneditorial job
Initially photographer tried to write on fan’s feet but pen ran out of ink and subject’s feet were too
dirty. The fan went to a restroom, washed his feet and came back with “Yeah Eckerd” written on his
feet. Photographer at another paper took photo of photographer trying to write words on subject’s
foot. As result this photographer was fired from paper. Had worked for St. Petersburg Times over 17
years. Norman Zeisloft / St. Petersburg Times
Digital alteration
• July 1992: This cover of
Texas Monthly magazine
shows the then Texas
Governor Ann Richards
astride a Harley-Davidson
Motorcycle. This picture
was created by splicing
the head of Richards onto
the body of a model.
Martha Stewart gets new body in Newsweek
March 2005: On its cover Newsweek features what
appears to be a photo of Ms. Stewart but is actually an
image combining a photo of her face and one of a
model's body. The idea, an editor at the magazine said,
was to portray Ms. Stewart as she may appear when
she emerges from prison - slimmer and stronger than
ever.
Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor at Newsweek,
emphasized that a credit on Page 3 with the table of
contents of the magazine made clear that the image on
the cover was a composite.
"In this case, we identified this piece as a photo
illustration," she said.
Janice E. Castro, director of graduate journalism
programs at Medill School of Journalism at
Northwestern University, said the image did not look
completely artificial and might be mistaken for an
unmodified news photo, which would be a concern in
terms of media credibility.
August 1989: The cover of TV
Guide displayed this picture of
daytime talk-show host Oprah
Winfrey. This picture was created
by splicing the head of Winfrey
onto the body of actress AnnMargret, taken from a 1979
publicity shot. The composite was
created without permission of
Winfrey or Ann-Margret, and was
detected by Ann-Margret's fashion
designer, who recognized the
dress.
•
February 1982: In this
National Geographic magazine
cover story on Egypt, the Great
Pyramids of Giza, in a
horizontal picture by Gordon
Gahen, were "squeezed"
together to fit the magazine's
vertical format. Tom Kennedy,
who became the director of
photography at National
Geographic after the cover was
manipulated, stated that "We no
longer use that technology to
manipulate elements in a photo
simply to achieve a more
compelling graphic effect.
•
February 1994: This digital
composite of Olympic ice
skaters Tanya Harding and
Nancy Kerrigan appeared on
the cover of New York
Newsday. The picture showed
the rivals practicing together,
shortly after an attack on
Kerrigan by an associate of
Harding's husband. The picture
caption reads: "Tonya Harding,
left, and Nancy Kerrigan,
appear to skate together in this
New York Newsday composite
illustration. Tomorrow, they'll
really take to the ice together."
•
April 2005: This digital
composite of actors Brad Pitt
and Angelina Jolie, then
rumored to have a romantic
relationship, appeared on the
cover of Star Magazine. The
picture of Pitt was taken in
Anguilla, a Caribbean island, in
January 2005. The picture of
Jolie was taken in Virginia
some time in 2004. On page 8 is
a disclaimer noting the image is
a "composite of two
photographs." This composite
was purchased from Big
Pictures, a London-based
photography agency, for
$500,000.
•
September 2000: Hoping to
illustrate its diverse enrollment,
the University of Wisconsin at
Madison doctored a photograph
on a brochure cover by digitally
inserting a black student in a
crowd of white football fans.
The original photograph of
white fans was taken in 1993.
The additional black student,
senior Diallo Shabazz, was
taken in 1994. University
officials said that they spent the
summer looking for pictures
that would show the school's
diversity -- but had no luck.
The original
photograph
of just white
fans was
taken in
1993.
•
June 1994: This digitally altered photograph of OJ Simpson appeared
on the cover of Time magazine shortly after Simpson's arrest for murder.
The photograph was manipulated from the original mug-shot that
appeared, unaltered, on the cover of Newsweek. Time magazine was
subsequently accused of manipulating the photograph to make Simpson
appear "darker" and "menacing".
Katie Couric suddenly loses 20 pounds…
or did she?
The original picture, on left, was snapped in May and was widely circulated to the
media as an official photo of Couric. The touched-up photo of Couric, on right,
appears on the inside of the September issue of Watch! which is distributed at CBS
stations and on American Airlines flights.
March 31, 2007: The
Toledo Blade ran photo
taken just before a Bluffton
baseball game. Five
members of the team had
recently died in tragic bus
crash and this was the first
game since the tragedy.
Photographer, Allan
Dietrich, said he
transmitted photo
accidentally. A week later
Dietrich was forced to
resign from the paper after
a 18-year career there.
NPPA's Code of Ethics prohibits the digital
manipulation of news photographs. “It is tempting
to want to correct a flaw in an otherwise
significant photograph, but whether it is done by
photographer, editor, or lab tech, once a ‘moment’
has been captured on film or on digital media, we
no longer have the right to change that image in
any way except for minor dodging, burning, or
cropping,”
- John Long
NPPA’s Ethics & Standards
Committee chairperson
(cont’d)
“The legs in this photo are annoying, but they are
there, in everyone’s frame, and ‘there’ is where
they have to remain. Removing small details may
be just a little lie, but the reading public does not
make such distinctions. Big or small, significant
or insignificant, a lie is a lie.
And the public does not want to be lied to at all.
Our credibility is all we have to offer the public
and it must be protected. We cannot change the
content of our photographs. We cannot lie.”
Political Campaigning
Bessemer Councilwoman Dorothy Davidson
distributed a flier for her mayoral campaign
that includes the photo to the left. Davidson
claims Alabama football coach Nick Saban
is endorsing her campaign, but the Alabama
athletics staff says no endorsement was
made. Davidson acknowledged Tuesday
night a photo shown below of Saban and his
wife, Terry, from 2007 was altered to
include her.
AFP photographer Emmanuel Dunand captured the photo above in the evening after the school
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
NPR published the photo on its Website and afterwards
received a message from the woman in the photo (whose
identity wasn’t known at the time), Aline Marie. Marie
wasn’t pleased that her photograph had been snapped
without her permission and subsequently shared around the
world.
Dunand -- he was simply doing his job of taking photos to
“help tell the story to the world.”
A Washington Post photographer submitted a photo that had been Photoshopped to hide a
person in the background of the image to the White House News Photographers
Association's annual awards. The un-altered photograph had originally been published in
the Washington Post last year.
Because of that doctoring, the photograph -- Tracy Woodward's "State Champion" -was "immediately disqualified" from the awards contest, according to a Feb. 25 report
on the WHNPA's website.
“AP’s reputation is paramount
and we react decisively and
vigorously when it is tarnished
by actions in violation of our
ethics code,” said Vice President
and Director of Photography
Santiago Lyon. “Deliberately
removing elements from our
photographs is completely
unacceptable and we have
severed all relations with the
freelance photographer in
question. He will not work for
the AP again in any capacity.”
Narciso Contreras, Pulitzer
Prize winning photographer for
AP (1/23/2014)