The Ethics of Publishing Images that Perpetuate a False Reality

Lauren McCain

 

 

 

While the world of technology continues to make large advances every day with the intention of further advancing the lives of humans, this progress can also occasionally create unintentional obstacles that make certain aspects of everyday life more difficult. 

In today's society, an unexpected challenge that has arisen as a result of increasing technological advancements in photo editing has been attempting to distinguish between real life and a world created in the narrative of media outlets. A world where women are hairless and thin, marriages are perfect, sheep are a cartoon shade of white, and every shot is a perfect shot. Photo manipulation is not new to the medium (see below for photos of Joseph Stalin famously airbrushing out his enemies as they fell out of grace with him).

The issue today is that new technologies allow for nearly seamless and undetectable photo manipulation that can quickly be spread to a massive audience in a matter of seconds. 

Whether an image is spreading unrealistic body expectations or complete misinformation by way of a doctored image, regardless, viewers are being fed a false version of reality. So, what hand do journalists have in this?

An increasingly prominent debate in recent years concerning journalists has been: where should publications draw the line at doctoring/editing photos for publishing? Altering the public's view of reality without their consent cannot possibly qualify as "gathering facts and reporting them", but when is it taken too far?

Associated Press's ethics code for photojournalists allows for minor adjustments, like cropping and adjusting the color of an image for necessary clarity and accuracy, but does not allow any type of editing that changes "the authentic nature of the photograph". They also do not allow for any staging of captured images, and when photos are taken in a studio, "care should be taken to avoid misleading viewers to believe that the moment was spontaneously captured in the course of gathering the news." 

Unfortunately, not every outlet has taken such measures concerning the integrity of their published images. Just this past June, Fox News came under fire for publishing digitally altered and misleading photos about the Seattle demonstrations. One image published by the network showed a digitally inserted man armed with an assault rifle, furthering the network's personal narrative of violent, out of hand "terrorists" that were wreaking havoc on the city. When called into question by The Seattle Times, Fox News removed the images, but how much damage was done before the images were removed?

The overarching point is this: the world cannot simply exist as an ideal medium for furthering an individual company's narrative. Tampering with the public's perception of the world by feeding them false realities is not the job of a journalist with integrity, especially in a time where "fake news" dominates and facts and truth-telling are vital. 

A clear ethical line needs to be drawn by publications and journalists to separate altering minor inconveniences in a photo for the purpose of increasing clarity, versus altering an entire reality captured in a photograph.