PHOTOJOURNALISM IN CRISIS? (The Bloggers Strike!)
In my book (BLOGWARS, forthcoming, OXFORD, 2007) I try to make the point that it is time to move on from the confrontational blogger-vs-MSM bipolarity of the earlier days of blogging. The so-callled MSM needs bloggers and is, in fact, "blogging up." Bloggers are becoming a normal part of the spectrum of media. But we still have brushfire battles, and perhaps they are the "birth pains" of a new media alignment. I wrote the article below for E&P--predictably I got some hate mail from journalists saying I was too pro-blogger, and from some bloggers saying I was a lackey of the MSM...or Hezbollah! Oh, well, if you support a marketplace of ideas you should not expect it to be tidy and nice. That said, as links below show, most bloggers who cited the piece understood I was trying to be fair to all parties...
By David D. Perlmutter, Editorandpublisher.com, August 17, 2006
(August 17, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible.
I'm not sure, however, if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both.
Perhaps it would be more reassuring if the enemy at the gates was a familiar one—politicians, or maybe radio talk show hosts. But the photojournalist standing on the crumbling ramparts of her once proud citadel now sees the vandal army charging for the sack led by “zombietime,” “The Jawa Report,” “Powerline,” “Little Green Footballs,” “confederateyankee,” and many others.
In each case, these bloggers have engaged in the kind of probing, contextual, fact-based (if occasionally speculative) media criticism I have always asked of my students. And the results have been devastating: news photos and video shown to be miscaptioned, radically altered, or staged (and worse, re-staged) for the camera. Surely “green helmet guy,” “double smoke,” “the missiles that were actually flares,” “[THE WOMAN WITH 3 BOMBED HOUSES,” “the wedding mannequin from nowhere,” the “magical burning Koran,” the “little girl who actually fell off a swing” and “keep filming!” will now enter the pantheon of shame of photojournalism.
A few photo-illusions are probably due to the lust for the most sensational or striking-looking image—that is, more aesthetic bias than political prejudice. Also, many photographers know that war victims are money shots and some will break the rules of the profession to cash in. But true as well is that local stringers and visiting anchors alike seem to have succumbed either to lens-enabled Stockholm syndrome or accepted being the uncredited Hezbollah staff photographer so as to be able to file stories and images in militia-controlled areas.
It does not help that certain news organizations have acted like government officials or corporate officers trying to squash a scandal. The visual historian in me revolts when an ABC producer informs me that Reuters “deleted all 920 images” by the stringer who produced the “Beirut double smoke” image and is “less than willing to talk about it.” Can you say “18-minute gap,” anyone?
There is one great irony here. From a historical perspective, this is the golden age of photojournalistic ethics. In previous eras wild retouching, rearranging, cutting of images and even staging and restaging of events for the camera were commonly accepted in the trade. As someone who has written a history of images of war, I can testify there is more honesty in war photography today than ever in the past in any medium or any war--but there is, of course, much more scrutiny as well.
The main point is that we are now at a social, political and technological crossroads for media—amateur, industrial, and all points and persons in between. First, we live in Photoshop-CGI culture. People are accustomed to watching the amazing special effects of modern movies, where it seems any scene that can be imagined can be pixilated into appearing photorealistic. On our desktop, many of us are photoshopping our lives, manipulating family photos with ease.
In addition, in a digital-Internet-satellite age, any image on the Web can be altered by anyone into any new image and there is no “original,” as in a negative, to prove which was first. The icons are sacred no longer. Finally, there are the bloggers: the visual or word journalist is not only overseen by a familiar hierarchy of editors or producers but by many independents who will scan, query, trade observations, and blast what they think is an error or manipulation to the entire world.
News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don’t delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.
The stakes are high. Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them.
And what of future victims of war? Will the public deny them their sorrows because we will dismiss all smoking rubble and dead children as mere digital propaganda?
Photojournalism must live, but not if its practitioners and owners are determined to jump into the abyss.
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from HOTAIR BLOG: "Update: David Perlmutter’s essay on “photojournalism in crisis” is, justifiably, being linked far and wide. Let’s make it a little further and wider." Indeed, and in the bloglands that's not always a good thing!
The orginal essay was cited by:
More....
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RESEARCH NOTE:
There are two terrific books on the subject of photo-manipulation. The second is written by a former CIA photoexpert. Very enjoyable reads as well.
Jaubert, Alain. 1989[1986]. Making People Disappear: An Amazing Chronicle of Photographic Deception. Washinggton: Pergamon-Brassey’s.
Brugioni, Dino A. 1999. Photo fakery: The history and techniques of photographic deception and manipulation. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s.
I also talk about "image biases" in two of my books:
David D. Perlmutter. Photojournalism and Foreign Policy: Framing Icons of Outrage in International Crises. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998.
David D. Perlmutter. Visions of War: Picturing Warfare from the Stone Age to the Cyberage. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
david.d.perlmutter
in Blogs & Marketplace of Ideas, International Political Blogs
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3 References
References (3)
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But Dr. Perlmutter gives me an "A" all the same: I first talked about the blogger-driven battles over the Israel-Hezbullah war imagery in an essay for Editor & Publisher and then here and here in PBB. And the controversy continues--with... -
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Reader Comments (15)
Before the Internet, journalists' words & pictures would come & go with the news cycle. Unless you were a packrat who subscribed to & saved multiple news sources, it took a lot more effort to compare, contrast and look for liars. Now Internet search engines let us quickly compare news stories present & past. The Internet also allows cyber-sleuths to check multiple sources. You can browse from Time to Newsweek to U.S. News & World Report. If something looks fishy, you can look back at last month's or last year's edition with the click of a mouse.
In cyberspace, this sleuthing can also be done as a community. If you see something that looks fishy, you can let your friends (or fellow bloggers) know and they can join in the hunt for the truth too.
I believe scrutiny like this helps weed out and expose the minority of fakers more quickly. It also holds the much larger majority of honest journalists more accountable to the principles of fairness and accuracy. No longer is someone watching-- everyone's watching and ultimately I believe journalism will be the better for it.
Hajj's manipulation was completely wrong--no two ways about it--but I don't think it was motivated out of a professional greed (landing a coveted magazine cover). Instead, I think he exaggerated an already terrible situation in an attempt to spark international outrage that mirrored his particular stance on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.
In the process, however, he completely distracted focus from the very war he felt compelled to over-emphasize.
I don't think Hajj's violation will damage the credibility of the profession as a whole. Perhaps, though, this incident can serve as a wake-up call, letting journalists and readers alike know that there's usually more than meets the eye even when it comes to "news" images.
Why are we so married to the old ways of doing things? There are more than two ways of attacking this problem. It seems if journalists are going to be caught photoshopping, go ahead and do it, if it's the best way to convey the message. Put the originals on the web, provide a link in the print edition, say this picture was photoshopped and give the bloggers something else to complain about.
As to the concluding premise that "democracy works when... democracy falis when...," I think a lot of what's going on right now falls into a third category, being "democracy fails when the populace falls into a number of hostile camps, each of which accepting only the news and images which support their beliefs about the wold, and wholly rejecting those that do not." There seem to be large numbers of people who, in their desire for a certain outcome, make themselves immune to contradictory information, regardless of a preponderance of sources, or anything else.
Regarding the above post from David Watts, I doubt that the photographers who manipulated their images were making a "cry for help," but I do believe that there is an overall sense of desperation and frustration, because much of what the Western world sees of war zones is sanitized in a number of senses. Robert Fisk of the Observer (UK) put forth that US conservatives' complaints that the media "isn't giving an accurate depiction of how things are going in Iraq" were at least half right--according to Fisk, things are much, much worse. He bases this statement on the beavior of many Western journalists of working from their hotel rooms, and gathering info mainly (by telephone) from official U.S./ally PR outlets. So you get the body counts, the wounded report, and so on, but that's more or less it. Based on this limited scope, one can pretty much daydream any reality one wishes, regarding how things are actually going.
Back to the discussion at hand, the furor over manipulated photos, it's worth noting that people usually find a way to use the discoveries to reinforce what they believe anyway. "Green Helmet Guy" is extrapolated into "Nothing's happening to Lebanon that a weekend of litter-patrol won't repair."
And yet, technology has increased the possibility of faking. It has become easier and more tempting, probably. However, technology has also increased the possibility of debunking fakes, e.g. through ‘blogospherical’ coverage. But will that prevent us from fauxtography? No, but it will help to guide people through the sometimes stormy waters of photojournalism. Its general perception will change, skepticism might grow. In the long run, it might compel the people behind the scenes to rethink their professional ethics.
Photojournalism reflects new technology (photography) being applied in an evolutionary manner to an existing activity called “Journalism.” Blogging, with its incredible information-gathering and dissemination capabilities, can also be viewed as new technology being applied in an evolutionary manner to journalism.
Perlmutter says: “As someone who has written a history of images of war, I can testify there is more honesty in war photography today than ever. . .” So where is the crisis?
Is this a decisive or critical moment in history because photojournalists, and those who publish news photos, are being asked simply for honesty and transparency?
If so, then perhaps it is time for photojournalists to take a hard look at their personal ethics and adhere to a higher standard that meets society’s need, and frees bloggers from feeling compelled to apply new technologies in a watchdog manner.
Perlmutter notes that there has been a greater awareness and effort to address the issue, and up until very recently, it may have been the case that the mainstream media had ratcheted up their standards in reporting news.
The advent of photoshop and the explosion of blogs, while leveling the playing field in some respects, also lends itself to greater manipulation. Perhaps the technology itself is a bit too new, and a bit too tempting for "journalists" or websites attempting to make a name for themselves. Hopefully this is an aberration, and a practice restricted to just a few unsavory sources.
Accumulation of credibility requires the passage of time. It is hoped that one day these pseudo-journalists will readjust their frequencies a tad and try to hone in on what "the truth" is regardless of their political proclivities.
Finally...and this may expose me as a total charlatan with respect to digital photography - but maybe the answer will take care of itself in a few years with technology being used to combat technology -- that is, maybe there will emerge some sort of "fingerprint" that would be the functional equivalent of a film negative to prove the validity of a particular photo.
Then we have the faux-tos from Lebanon. Does it really matter if a burning Koran was staged or not? Is the image still not a burning symbol of a religious conflict out of control? Was adding more smoke to the smoking buildings making the conflict seem worse than it was? Sometimes the motives of the critics need to be examined just as much as the motives of the faux-tographers themselves.
It is true that many people are cynical about the media and believe that reporters often lie to the public. I must be naive then in saying that if that is how the media works, I want no part in it. Is it so hard to report the facts as is? Do we really need to take war photos and enhance them, as if war isn't graphic enough already? Maybe if the media world would shape up and use technology only in honest and beneficial ways, the public would not be so critical of it.