Photojournalism and ethical publishing

Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo is the heading of news story about Egypt’s newspaper A-Ahram publish the image shows president Mubarak was the leading the middle East peace talks instead of president Barack Obama. The image shows President Mubarak walking ahead president Barack Obama, which is different from the orginal image taken at the White House, where president Obama was leading the way and President Mubarak followed behind. A-Ahram was accused to use manipulated photo and for not being honest and unprofessional.  Technology lead almost everything, allows us to anything we want or change anything the way we want it to be, which sometime make us not to believe any thing we see. The image can be change to the point that is undetectable or can be hard to differentiate the real image and fake one. According to Jerry Lodriguss in his article suggest that, with digital processing, there is almost no limit to what can be done to an image, and many things are done to images with the best intentions. also state that, The fundamental fact that we usually forget is that when we take a picture we do not make a perfectly objective recording of reality. What we make is an interpretation of reality.  While Emery and Curtis say that, picture manipulations that present misleading views, visual messages that perpetuate negative stereotypes of individuals from various multicultural groups.

Journalist sometimes uses their cameras to tell the story, but the images can cause great harm if they are sensitively interfering or manipulated. The National Press Photographers Association suggest the following code of ethics in photographer

1.Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects

2.Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.

3.Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.

4.Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.

References

Emery Michael and Curtis Ted, 1995, the Readings in Mass Communication, Brown & Benchmark Publishers

Jerry Lodriguss, the Ethics of Digital Manipulation, viewed on8^thJune2011,available http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/ETHICS.HTM

NPPA Code of Ethics, viewed on 8^th June 2011, available at http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics.html