'Blade' Probe Turns Up More Questionable Photos by Detrich

Recent threads in "Casual Conversations" have noted a timeline on this story.

 

First, there was a question about a photograph published by the Toledo Blade by

photographer Allan Detrich.

 

Then, Detrich resigned.

 

Now, the Toledo Blade reports finding more photographs that had been digitally

altered, presumably by Detrich.

 

This is not the first time this has come up. A photographer in North Carolina,

Patrick Schneider, was fired for a second offense of modifying a photograph that

ran on the front page of his newspaper, the Charlotte Observer - in his case, it

was a firefighter on a ladder taken against a setting sun, and level values were

changed.

 

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002914629

 

Another, more infamous photograph, was taken in Beirut by Adnan Hajj, and

published by Reuters - it appeared to be nearly entirely bogus, and further

examination revealed it to be one of many.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13165165/

 

And now we have the latest in this trend.

 

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003571081

 

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo01.html

 

This link shows the modification that was made:

 

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/images/toledo_four_images_000.jpg

 

It is very clear to see - a pair of legs (belonging to another photographer)

were removed from where they protruded from beneath a banner. They detracted

from the image. "Fixing" the image in this case did not substantially subtract

from the 'truth' of the photojournalistic image.

 

So, from this we gather that there are strong standards being put in place

(assuming they are not there already) that presume a zero-tolerance for altered

images.

 

But one may assert that a photo stored in JPG format *is* altered, by the preset

values in the camera itself. A photographer who intentionally selects a

polarizing filter or a flash is altering the image. A choice of one f-stop over

another is altering the image - but these all alter how the image is recorded,

not after it is recorded. In the example image of the legs sticking out - what

if Detrich had merely cropped the photo to remove the banner entirely? Would

that then have been acceptable?

 

So what is so realistic about the image in the first place - in other words, is

this not like putting a chastity belt on a street-walker? The loss has already

occurred!

 

So, in decreasing order of 'damage' to the actual news content:

 

1) Heavily-altered images of battle damage in Beirut that never occurred.

 

2) Level values changed in fireman-on-ladder photo that gave heightened

emotional impact, but did not change the fact of the photo.

 

3) Legs removed from bottom of nearby banner, a distraction at best.

 

I am curious to find out what most people here think of these recent goings-on.

No denying that good or bad, they are having a serious impact on the business

of photojournalism!

Have photojournalists been using circular polarizers? If so then the fireman shot would seem to have been altered to the same degree that a CP does.

 

The solution is to shoot RAW and let the editors put their own necks in a noose.

 

If you tell the photographer to move his feet from underneath the sign, you have altered the truth of the moment. Of course that same photographer wasn't really there as an integral part of the event, but rather as a record keeper. Catch-22. As soon as even one photographer shows up, the event changes. I wonder how many people realize the extent to which many published photographs are staged. People are confusing the integrity of the image with the integrity of the moment.

Valid comments!

 

Let us look at it more in the light of a DUI law. We know that two people with the same blood-alcohol content are not impaired to the same extent - everyone's response to the effects of alcohol is different, and heavy drinkers also develop a tolerance for a high B.A.C.

 

And yet, since it is impossible to have an objective standard to answer the question "How drunk are you," we instead substitute the only objective standard we can - the B.A.C. limit for any given state.

 

So one guy is plastered well below the legal limit - another is stone cold sober at twice the legal limit.

 

Fair? No. But perhaps the only way we can have any means of keeping drunk drivers off the road at all.

 

Now, can we apply this to photojournalism?

 

If we say NO PHOTOSHOPPING, period, then any modifications get you fired - and that appears to be the direction we are going. It does not matter what the alteration is.

 

If we say we'll take each issue on a case-by-case basis, then we can no longer be objective about what is and is not allowed.

 

Thoughts?

<i>If we say NO PHOTOSHOPPING, period...</i>

<p>

Since "photoshopping" is not an actual word and has no descernible meaning, it's difficult to comment on this proposal. Presumably the standards are not brand-specific. And no image can possibly be published unless it's digitally processed to some degree by some software at some point.

<p>

Subjective standards are inevitable, and there's no reason they should be unworkable. Print journalism has many subjective standards, so why should photojournalism be any different?

i'm not even sure how the altered version of the 'heavy smoke over beirut' shot got published. it is so clearly poor photochopping- looks like the guy just used the clone tool for a bunch of the smoke billows.

 

how did reuters not see this? anyone with eyes can. maybe the editors need to be more accountable?

It's a total joke that the news media pretend to report the news in an unbiased manner anyway. At the very least, everybody has an opinion, and that opinion can't help but sneak into reportage. Typically though, in my opinion, most (if not all) sources of the news have an agenda, and their products are dripping with the flavor of their opinions.

 

In these instances, if there is blame to be had, I think it can be shared by both the photographers and the papers. The photographers very well may not have known the changes were significant (at least in some of the cases), and the news agencies also clearly haven't set a black-and-white standard for manipulation. On the other hand, if in doubt, be up-front and let the paper make the decision on whether what has been done is acceptable or not.

 

Perhaps it would behoove news agencies to partner with Adobe or Apple to create an industry standard version of a conversion/manipulation program where manipulations that are deemed too extreme simply cannot be done.

The original posting is baited and mixes apples and oranges. Editors want a factual image. Play with the content and you will be fired. Its as simple as that. The new Reuters guidelines are also quite clear what you can and cannot do with an image.

Ocean - 'photoshopping' is in the process of becoming a word. It has entered the lexicon already (I did not coin it) and Adobe has apparently done little to enforce their trademark on the name - so just as aspirin and Band Aid are now generic and nearly generic, respectively, photoshopping is becoming a word which means digital manipulation in the manner of that performed by Photoshop . It would seem as if you are objecting just to object. Fair enough.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop

 

"The term "photoshopping" is a neologism, meaning "editing an image", regardless of the program used (compare with Google used as a verb). Adobe discourages use of the term [1] out of fear that it will undermine the company's trademark. The term photoshop is also used as a noun referring to the altered image."

 

matt m - Some speculate that the photos got published due to a lack of oversight. Others believe the rush to scoop took priority. Still others attribute political motives to Reuters or at least to their editors in this case. Bloggers apparently uncovered a plethora of clearly photoshopped (neener neener, Ocean) photos published by Reuters that originated from this photographer and others he worked with. The mainstream media didn't appear to want to cover that, for reasons I won't speculate on. In any case - what if the clone work had been masterful? Would it be ok then? Just curious what your reaction to the changes are, not how well or badly they were executed.

"The original posting is baited and mixes apples and oranges."

 

I don't feel that it is, since I do not have a strong opinion here one way or the other. Can you show me what is 'apples' and what is 'oranges' in my original post? I promise I'm not baiting anyone - I do not have an ax to grind here, I really have no opinion as to whether the removal of the legs should have been a firing offense or not. I accept that if it violated the newspaper's standards and the photographer knew about it, then that's that. But I'm not at all sure if such standards are well-done, even if well-intentioned. That's the heart of the matter, right?

 

"Editors want a factual image. Play with the content and you will be fired. Its as simple as that. The new Reuters guidelines are also quite clear what you can and cannot do with an image."

 

Noted that the Reuters guidelines are NEW. Meaning this is an issue that confronts all photojournalists, and it is in the process of evolving. Worthy of discussion, don't you think?

 

In addition, 'play with the content' - that's unclear, and I'm not trying to be disingenuous here. I mentioned one possibility - what if (in the case of the missing feet) the photographer had simply cropped out that particular banner? Cropping is allowed, is it not? If not, what if he had zoomed to frame differently? Playing with the content how? When? By what means? Is telling a subject to turn and face the camera playing with the image? What about taking the photo with a special lens or filter, to achieve a certain effect? And so on.

 

In other words, if the end result would have been the same - no distracting feet - does it matter how that was obtained? By framing, by post-shot cropping, or by digital manipulation?

 

In the case of the fireman - it was noted that a polarizer might have given the same effect - but it would have been pre-shot. Would that have been 'different'? I am actually looking for a yes or no answer here, if you please. And if you feel it would have been a different situation, why do you feel that way?

 

I will certainly admit to playing Devil's Advocate here - again, I'm not taking a side, but I am interested in people's opinions on the issue.

<i>And no image can possibly be published unless it's digitally processed to some degree

by some software at some point.</i><p>

Irrelevant rhetoric. It is all about limits.<p>

 

<i>Subjective standards are inevitable, and there's no reason they should be unworkable.

Print journalism has many subjective standards, so why should photojournalism be any

different?</i><p>

And now you make innuendo against writers. You know where we can go with such insane

reasoning. Hell, if

we were to take your posit as sensible, then we could ask why we shouldn't breed humans

for food. They are made of meat, aren't they?

Photographs have the potential to offer credible evidence that could be valuable later. The

only metrics a news editor can make are the most strident, and if you look at the NPPA

rules, they are clear.

 

While it is very true that the camera points to what the photogapher wants to photograph,

thereby leaving out a lot, that is his degree of freedom. An editor who doesn't like what

angle, view or subject within an event a photographer chooses to photograph, then he can

find another one.

<b>WJ</b> <i>In the case of the fireman - it was noted that a polarizer might have given

the same effect - but it would have been pre-shot. Would that have been 'different'? I am

actually looking for a yes or no answer here, if you please. And if you feel it would have

been a different situation, why do you feel that way?</i><p>

A polarizer would have probably been acceptable, especially if he used it to cut the haze in

order to get more detail in the firemen.<p>

We really need to know what was going on behind the scenes in that case. He was a

photographer who had won a lot of clip-contests and received more awards than anyone

on the staff during the same period. The complaints were initiated by members of his own

staff.

I strongly suspect his staff members hated his "winning" style or the prevailing esthetic

judgements of press photos. So they

chose a couple examples of manipulation and forced it all the way and the only response

the judges could make was to rescind. <p>

A journalistic photo should show what an observer could have seen had he been there himself.

 

Sometimes filters or flash can make the resulting image look more like the original scene; sometimes less so. Same with photoshop and similar programs. The standard should be based on the verisimilitude of the result, not the technique used to achieve it.

 

Of course, there's is always editorial judgment involved, even at the stage of image capture. Which angle of view? Which composition? Which moment? These selective judgments are valid because they all result in images that show at least part of the truth. What is objectionable is using Photoshop to alter an image so that it looks like something that wasn't there in the first place.

 

In between the poles of a verisimilar image and one that is created in Photoshop lies the territory in which the photographer rearranges reality before snapping it. For straight news stories, this should be strictly impermissible, but for news portraiture and feature stories, it's done all the time and always has been.

 

"Sometimes pictures taken under prevailing conditions do not convey graphically a situation that a person at the scene comprehends...it may become necessary to rearrange things. I try to do this as inconspicuously as possible, so as not to alter the integrity of the situation or the prevailing mood." -- Alfred Eisenstaedt in The Leica Manual (1951 Edition), pp. 250-251.

If I were still working for a newspaper I would want to have a set of clear cut rules about "photoshopping" like Reuters. My attitude when I did seveal roles of film a week for a newspaper was that they paid for the work and they had the say on what they published.I took so many pictures that I couldn't remember what they were. The major concern was workflow. Most of my pictures were pretty mundane as most newspaper pictures usually are (i.e. politicians, school pictures, sports etc.). We had to develop and print contacts and then print selected pictures for lay up. Never had time to fool with a picture. My own opinion would be to shoot in RAW and let an editor fool with pictures that were selected for print just from a workload standpoint although someone else screwing with my pictures would make me a little uncomfortable. If I had to do it, and the publishers object was to present the news correctly as mine was, that setting levels for accurate reproduction would be important. When I did film in the late nineties we did this somewhat with the enlarger but not often because of wide film latitude. Underexposure did not print well at all. My question is "did the newsppaper have adequate rules for the photographer"? If not what the hell was he supposed to go by? Not that I would do what he did but there is a need for clear cut policy for this. Reuters published rules after the fact. Read the rules on this site for stating what is altered. They are not simple but I do understand them. I don't know the facts but editors are notorious for dumping on the lowest common denominator.

Seems this forum is gettig more like AM talk radio everyday...

<i>We had to develop and print contacts and then print selected pictures for lay up.

</i><p>

We never did contact prints. The photographers and editor looked at the negatives through a

loupe held to a light box, and often just held up to the ceiling lights and choices were made

right there. Select frames were punched on the edge. Five to twenty rolls a day were typical

for each photographer.

"Seems this forum is gettig more like AM talk radio everyday..."

 

In the sense that you've made it by the call screener, I agree.

I'm curious why adjusting the levels (i assume this is levels and not color replacement) alters an image.

 

The shot appears to be a silouhette, so I'm wondering if he just slid left level to the right. If so how is this manipulative? Sure he didn't get the silouhette in camera but if that was his goal and it didn't alter the content in anyway why does it matter.

 

See the problem with digital photos and digital media is this all came on very fast. As late as the late 1990's people were still shooting journalism with film, only in the last 5 years has film completely gone to the wayside. However, regulations haven't kept pace with the onslaught of the digital age.

 

When I shot for a paper, I shot my rolls, dropped them off, and my photo editor chose anything worth printing. i had no input in the printing process.

 

With digital I'd want clear cut rules as to what I could do. or I'd almost rather them just say, submit your raw files and go home. Less work for me, more shooting.

 

The problem with this is a raw file often needs basic editing to look correct. I'd be uneasy with someone making exposure decisions on my work.

Perhaps "real" news organizations should go back to film and analog printing, then they'd

have negatives to prove events were recorded by optics and chemistry alone, with less

potential for alteration. Of course that would cost more and take longer, so it's not going to

happen.

 

Still it's definitely a myth that any photojournalism is a wholly objective record of reality,

when PJs do pick certain lenses, f/stops shutter, speeds, cameras and most importantly

points of view that each distort reality in some way or exclude important information. Life is

too big and complex, even for a 21mm Biogon.

I've always had nearly complete control over my images which sometimes means I just couldn't get anyone else to do it for me. In the film days it was never an issue to dodge and burn, crop, select focus or any of the hundred other tricks of the trade. Even lens selection alters the presentation the way I want it to. Why did I use a 24mm instead of a 135? So it would look the way I wanted. That still goes on everyday in journalism. We may be doing it with microchips but we still dodge and burn and pick and choose lenses, decide to use fill flash or not. It all affects the outcome but makes it no less honest. It's wrong to add a physical element like smoke that wasn't there originally and then call it a news photos. It's wrong to add a baseball to a shot to make it better when there wasn't one to begin with. That's dishonest. I have to use levels and curves and contrast control everyday to make what goes in the paper look right. That's just practical. There is what we do to make a good shot and then there is what we do to get past the press operator. I guess my bottom line is that I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day and not get fired.

 

Rick H.

I have been following these instances of journalistic ethics for a while and as a

photojournalist and a PhD student in Media have some concerns. While agree there

should be a standard of truth in photojournalism, I feel this whole situation is far

overblown. The whole industry is trying to maintain the truth in the photos being shown

by avoiding doctoring, even just by color manipulation. My concern is that while there is

currently heated debate on photos being manipulated, there is less debate about the

actual stories being written. While researching and writing my dissertation on bias in

the media, relating towards politics, i have come to the conclusion, that unbiased

reporting is almost impossible. Whether it be the reporters writing the piece, the editor

choosing which is deemed "newsworthy", there is influence over the information and the

subsequent viewership by the public. You can not deny that the main goal of any

Newspaper, Television Network or other commercial media outlet is to bring value/profit

to its owners.

Looking at the recent events in Virginia, they are tragic yes, but what is the reason that

network news covered the event in such lengths. The event affected many throughout

the nation, but this was not the reason for the coverage. The media as a whole has a way

of taking an event either unexpected like a Hurricane, or tragic like the Virginia Tech

shootings, and make it into a media event. Extensive media coverage of an event like

this not only reports on the events that transpired but provides a platform for further

discussion on related political and social concerns that ignite further media events. While

networks and newspaperes serve a purpose in providing information to the masses they

are far from unbiased and can seldom be called objective. If you look back throughout

the history of journalism in the US, in the early 1800's many publications were partisan,

and there was no pretense of objectivity in reporting on events that were of benefit or

detriment to their cause. This notion of objective unbiased reporting has only pervaded

the public sphere since the proliferation of corporate owned media.

If the media can take a high road and avoid scandalizing events, and using them to

entice viewership, objective reporting would be closer to a reality, but a true objective

unbiased media is likely to be an impossibility.

As a student of the media and working in the industry, I believe that doctoring photos

to improve their asthetic should be allowable while doctoring photos to change their

newsworthyness is not. If these photographers were fired for "doctoring" an image an

changing the "truth" then many, many photographers should be fired for asking someone

to look at a camera and smile, talking to the subject of for that matter interacting with

environment itself. For once a photojournalist interacts with the public in an environment

they become a participant, and cannot and should not portray themselves as a mere

observer .

I believe the public is aware the media plays an active role in events that transpire, and use

the fact an event is covered and adjust their behaviour accordingly. If in all my studies I

have learned one thing, it is that the media, whether it media broadcast, print or web,

should accept the fact that they are participants in events they cover and do the public a

service and make them aware that media is not an "official" outlet of any type of

information and merely a conduit to ideas, opinion and mediated facts.