Perspective or Bias?

In our most recent thread, Will Perlis brought up an interesting thought that

touched on a subject I feel deserves its own forum, so here goes . . . inasmuch

as every artist sees his subject in a unique way and presents his vision laden

with the artifacts of his own experience, is there a point at which his

perspective becomes a biased view?

 

News reporters and photographers are expected to be as objective as humanly

possible, but the clear editorial stance of most mainstream media suggests

otherwise. Is it even reasonable to expect any story or photograph to present a

picture that's completely devoid of bias or even a predetermined agenda?

 

As artists who wield cameras instead of brushes or chisels, is there a greater

burden on us to be free of prejudice simply because of the old adage

that "cameras don't lie"? (Definitely pre-Photoshop!) Does it make a difference

whether our work is expected to be factual or if it might be thought of as

representational or even abstract? Is there such a thing as truth in the

abstract?

 

Is there really a difference between perspective and bias?

i once knew, nolonger with us, who owned a leica md and he was blind. he took pictures and he would say that he could feel the image with his fingers especially when printed on Kodak Opal paper.

 

you made me think of him and what his perspective must have been.

A disclaimer: I am pretty much retired and was not a photojournalist (PJ) or artist although some people thought otherwise.

 

I have never known a PJ (or writer/reporter) who was objective or unbiased. What the photographer chooses to frame means he has chosen not to frame something else. Now, I HAVE seen work done by certain PJs that more clearly 'told the story' than others in the same or similar situations. Clarity instead of abstraction is, imho, a virtue.

 

Very often the picture that tells the story is not the picture that's going to make an editor or photographer well known, or even appreciated, so the tendency is to honor and award "that great shot" that existed among very many others that might have been better in terms of what you might be calling objectivity, so I would say that your assertion that they are expected to be as objective as possible by their peers and editors is just plain incorrect.

 

The difference between perspective and bias is semantic. Make a definition if you like, but whatever you decide is not as important as realizing how individuals are usually motivated by an idea which has unexamined fundamental presumptions. It is important because people act upon ideas. What people do makes the difference, and most "do" unconsciously.

<I>As artists who wield cameras instead of brushes or chisels, is there a greater burden

on us to be free of prejudice simply because of the old adage that "cameras don't lie"?

</I><P> The entire adage is "cameras don't lie, but photographers do." This goes all the

way back to the very beginnings of photography and has nothing to do with Photoshop or

other digital editing programs.<P>Since you bring up the issue of clear editorial bias in

the mainstream media" I take it that you are independent and intelligent person and are

including Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity, etc. in that assessment

as

you don't get much more mainstream or influential of public opinion than that. So as one

independent thinker to another I ask what you think should be done with people who

make terroristic threats like sending white powder in unmarked envelopes to people and

organizations you disagree with? Such a story is related here : <P>http://www.wwd.com/

issue/article/107729

I couldn't access the link, Ellis, but if this incident was like too many others I feel the perpetrators should be exposed for what they are -- terrorists. Beyond that, I'd rather not wander too close to politics.

 

Since I've been clicking shutters for about sixty years, I'm familiar with the context of the expression, but appreciate the clarification. When Weegee of the (NY) Daily News shot one of his grisly pictures, readers shuddered, knowing the gore and pain were very real. Newsrooms didn't have the skill, even if they might have wanted, to alter his gritty pictures. By contrast, today's PJs have it easy when they want to put a certain slant to the story.

 

Considering they "work for the man" and have editors to please, that's not too surprising. It does seem disingenuous, however, to maintain an air of impartiality and balance when the results are so clearly otherwise. And, yes, that applies to both sides of a polarized media. I suppose that to expect more would be to strip them of their human instincts and attempt a utopian impossibility.

 

Those of us who aren't PJs, however, seem to be confronted with just the oposite challenge -- how to creatively infuse our work with our emotions and sense of wonder. If we fail at that, don't we fall short of creating real art?

<i>Those of us who aren't PJs, however, seem to be confronted with just the oposite challenge -- how to creatively infuse our work with our emotions and sense of wonder. If we fail at that, don't we fall short of creating real art?</i><p>

 

If you claim your objective is 'real art' (which is so vague that it obviates the relatively narrow scope of journalism), then of course you need not have the same concern as a photojournalist. That should be very clear.<p>

 

Coulter is not a journalist. Neither is she an artist. She is a terrorist, a trolling opportunist, raking in the big bucks by subverting reason and the tighly coupled, long-held idea of freedom.

<I>I couldn't access the link, Ellis, but if this incident was like too many others I feel the

perpetrators should be exposed for what they are -- terrorists.</P></I> I whole

heartedly agree Dick.<P>

Since you could not acess the link, here is the story in full:<P><I> If you falsely yell

"Fire!" in a

crowded theater and everyone tramples each other to death, you get sent to jail. So what

should be done with Ann Coulter, who has argued that The New York Times should have

been blown up by Timothy McVeigh and that Times executive editor Bill Keller should be

executed by firing squad? <P>

 

This was the question one Times source asked on Friday after an employee at the paper of

record received an envelope with an X scrawled through it and a suspicious powder inside.

"This thing makes all of Ann Coulter's comments a little less funny," said the source. "I

wonder if she considers herself at all responsible when lunatics read her columns and she

says that we should be killed." <P>

 

So Memo Pad went and asked her, sending an e-mail to her AOL account. And guess what?

She not only responded, but claimed to be the sender of the mysterious powder.<P>

 

"So glad to hear that The New York Times got my letter and that your friend at the Times

thinks I'm funny," she wrote back. "Good luck in journalism and please send me your home

address so we can stay in touch, too. <P>

 

"P.S. If we get hit again, don't forget to ask the NYT if they consider themselves

responsible since they have repeatedly exposed classified government programs designed

to prevent another terrorist attack."<P>

 

Thankfully, the powder at the Times turned out to be cornstarch. Memo Pad declined to

send Coulter its home address. <P>

ﾗ Jacob Bernstein, Women's Wear Daily</I><P>

Dick,

it is me (again). You wrote:

 

"Newsrooms didn't have the skill, even if they might have wanted, to alter his gritty

pictures." actuall ythat isn't true. Newpapers and in magazines have always possesed

and often exercised the skills and ability to manipulate photographic coverage of a story.

The crudest and most powerful tool is of course simply editing what gets run and what

doesn't. Newpapers frequently ran gory photos like those of Weegee's to boost circualtion

against rival publications. And publishers ahve frequently exercised their bias. perhaps

most blatantly in the USA in Joseph Hearst's inflaming public opinion and goading the Us

to war i nthe Spanish-American War.

 

I can think of at least two recent incidents where photo-journalists who used their

Photoshop skills to juice up a photo were both outed and fired by sharp eyed editors and

readers. In one instance British pj filled out a crowd of Iraqi's and put weapons in the

hands of people who in other sections of the picture didn't have weapons.

 

As you point out Photoshop has democratized photo-manipualtion skills, butthe larger

picture is that today traditional "mainstream media" is losing ground as a primary new

source becasue cheap computers and even cheaper still and video cameras , combined

with easy internet access has even more throughly democratized our access to stories

that otherwise we might never have known about. it is harder to manipulate the news

when the public has so many ways to get many different points of view, a plurality and

diversity of of coverage is a good and empowering thing for a healthy democracy and a

bad thing for tyranny.

"Is there really a difference between perspective and bias?"

 

(Let's leave Ann Coulter aside. Far, far aside. IMO she's at least as pathologically nutty as the far leftists of the '60s.)

 

"Perspective" and "Bias" are, in this context, words with the same basic meaning. The difference is that "bias" is pejorative when used anywhere other than in electronics.

 

I just don't see how it's in any way possible to divorce oneself from whatever one does, and that includes photography.

 

For PJ there are some formal and rudimentary operational definitinos of "objective", such as "Don't add anything" and "Don't delete anything" and "You can get rid of dust" and "You can tweak contrast". But that's about it.

 

I'm not sure it's worth worrying about. I automatically assume an artist, reporter, politcian, scientist, photographer, et al. is "coming from somewhere". If the subject is of interest I'll make an effort to find out where that is.

The Old Testament forbids the graven image partly because pictures play on the emotions

and are thought an unreliable means of telling the truth. The God of the Bible and of the

Koran is the God of the Word. Rational thought is conveyed by the word. In a trial involving

video-taped evidence, such as the Rodney King police brutality trial, the lawyers argued

about what the pictorial evidence meant. Pictures need interpretation.

 

Stills of any kind do not present reality as it is since life is never frozen or framed.

Freezing life

necessarily transforms it into something that could no longer be called real. As has been

said above, framing involves making huge omissions.

 

Ann Coulter may be a nut, but she has got a swell-looking set of gams. A perfect example

of the power of image to sway opinion through emotion. Her irrational ideas are sold

partially by means of the irrational power her beauty holds as conveyed through television.

She is largely a visual phenomenon.

 

Freedom and subverting reason are not mutually exclusive. Most of what is said anywhere

is not true. Freedom is not about telling the truth. Freedom is about liberty.

 

Ann Coulter exaggerates, uses irony, defends the indefensible such as Senator Joseph

McCarthy, but is she a terrorist? Was McCarthy himself? Are muslim clerics who call for

jihad or pronounce fatwahs? People may act after hearing something. But does that make

the speaker responsible for what they do? What is the point in labeling Coulter a terrorist?

To pave the way to send her to Guantanamo? How else could you shut her up? Intent is

hard to prove.

"...pictures play on the emotions and are thought an unreliable means of telling the truth. ... Rational thought is conveyed by the word."

 

I suspect the ancients weren't pre-channelling Marshall McLuhan and certainly hacking an image out of stone doesn't allow for much PJ work.

 

As for the word conveying any sort of intrinsic rationality, you *have* to be kidding. There's absolutely nothing that necessarily links any word or sequence of them to any reality at all.

Well, now I MUST chime in on this thread: Ann Coulter's legs are WAY too skinny.

 

On the photography part of it, I'm not sure any photo can avoid some form of what someone is going to consider bias. Go back in archives and see pix of Jesse Helms with his mouth wide open and eyes half shut like he's frothing, Teddy Kennedy looking drunk, your favorite/least favorite pol looking dazed/confident, etc. While each photo would be a true representation quite often, it probably gave a "slant" to the story where it was presented.

From today's "Slate": Quote- " A photo is not necessarily a lie,nor is it the truth. It is more of a fleeting subjective impression." (Martine Franck.) Agree or not,the burden gets to be one of intellectual honesty. Whatever that means to you, of course,and there lies the debate.

<b>kevin farrell</b><i> Ann Coulter exaggerates, uses irony, defends the indefensible such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, but is she a terrorist? </i><p>

 

Certainly she is. She uses lies to terrify people in order to pursuade them that her language is correct. She asks terrorists to punish those she disagrees with. She's an ally of the myth the right-wing has created. The current rightwing uses the word "freedom" in a context never used before in American history - coupled with threats of terrorists under every bed, the removal of freedoms. <p>

 

<b>Will Perlis</b> <i>There's absolutely nothing that necessarily links any word or sequence of them to any reality at all.</i><p>

 

The mind uses words and pictures to create its framework to navigate through life. Misinformation repeated over and over and coupled to a familiar word changes the foundations of frameworks. Frameworks lead to action. Action is reality. Read up on the famous Problems of Social Reality.

<p>

 

<b>Jack Floyd</b><i> Well, now I MUST chime in on this thread: Ann Coulter's legs are WAY too skinny. </i><p>

And her legs are the best part of her! IMHO she isn't suitable for dog food.

Hey, Will Perlis, words convey rational thought, not 'intrinsic reality.' Words are a better

means of reaching the truth than pictures because appearances can deceive. Viewed from

above water, the stick under water appears bent, even though it is not. Sometimes what you

know is different from what you see.

<I>words convey rational thought</I><P>Rational thought is not an inherent trait of either

a written or spoken language. Words and grammar convey irrational thinking and ideas just

as easily, gracefully, intelligently, artfully and forcefully as they can rationality, truth, or

deception.

Words convey rational thought, pictures do not. To say words convey rational thought is not

to say they exclusively convey rational thought. When I say a bucket holds water, this does

not imply I mean to include buckets with holes in them.

Dick,

 

Your OP made me think of the famous Karsh portrait of the Nazi officer, where the use of

harsh uplighting made the subject look demonic. Definitely a point of view going on there.

Maybe point of view is a better term for bias or perspective. Anyone who makes a picture or

crafts a sentence brings a point of view to the task.

Wow. What a thread. And what misinformation. I am a working photojournalist. My pictures are published virtually every day. For those who really care about the original question how about a reality check.

 

Every newspaper photographer will tell you that the vast majority of pictures have no political slant at all. They are not political stories. When I am sent to photograph anyone I assume it is my job to make them look as presentable as possible. That said. The other day I was sent to photograph Howard Dean. He is a politician about whom I am ambivalent at best. So do I make him look bad? Please. That would be so transparent that anyone seeing the picture would know exactly what I was doing. Starting with my managing editor. Besides. Ask yourself this question. What is the real story? This is a story about Howard Dean�s speech to a Democrat fundraiser. My charge, as I saw it, was to take a picture that showed to those who were not there what the experience of being there was like. Dean was his usual gregarious self. The story dictated that I illustrate that. The picture that was published was one of him holding his famous fundraising bat. I�m sure he would have liked it. Slant was not the story.

 

Re Coulter: I am required to attend political events from both sides of the aisle. I can assure you that you can hear stuff just as outrageous as anything Coulter says at any Democrat or Republican meeting. She just markets it better. (I vote for great legs.) (Before anyone starts calling me names I voted for Nader.) But just listen to you folks! And on a thread about bias. Sheesh.

 

There are some obviously partisan publications out there. The New York Times heading the list. It has become a laughing stock in the rest of the media and today announced that it is cutting news coverage dramatically. Why. Bad reporting. People know the difference between a biting political commentary and a hatchet job. The NYT lied and got caught. They offer no balance at all. At least Hannity has Colmbs. But the real difference is that Hannity, Colmbs, Limbaugh, Goodman and Ivins is that they don�t claim to be journalists. They are political commentators. Readers like them. What they don�t like is political commentary disguised in a news story. And they say so.

 

Journalistic integrity begins and ends with the reader. They are always trump. On a practical level journalistic integrity flows from the publisher, through the editors and to me. My �chain of command� would never tolerate my tampering with a photograph except for the normal adjustments to make it reproduce better. (Color balance, contrast, sharpening cropping for fit and such.) Nor would our readers trust us if we published a hatchet job.

 

Finally I can honestly say that I really don�t think about political slant when I am working. I am too busy. Besides. News photographs happen suddenly and outside of my control. I just snap away and let the editors sort it out. That is the news. A photo essay is something quite different. That is for another thread. Ask the photojournalists you know and you will find out that we are simply too busy and hopefully to professional to slant our coverage. It just doesn�t work that way. One more illustration. Hypothetical. I see lots of bad stuff. And in the middle of this bad stuff there are often these angels called firefighters/paramedics. Magnificent men and women who are heroes every single day. The average person simply has no idea about what they do. So if I see some of them a little tipsy at their Christmas pary but don't take or turn in the picture is this media bias? Just the opposite. If I did turn in the 'story' I would be doing all of them a disservice. That is unless I turned in 5000 pictures of them doing CPR, entering flaming buildings, consoling the victims and risking their lives at the same time. Balance, understanding, compassion and honesty are the hallmarks of a good photojournalist. That and the old saying....."F8 and be there".

Rick says the job is to make them look as "presentable as possible?" That is a reality check,thanks. And I had thought photojournalism was to illustrate and help "sell"-in the positive sense- a story, keeping circulation afloat. That said,as a consumer of photojournalism, I admire the working photojournalist,who,like writers, gets marching orders from above. Article by photo editor of New York Times link below.(No opinion on Coulter,not my type):

 

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/media/asktheeditors.html

Here is the Q and A section I remembered as relevant to reader perception and recognition of the effect of "perspective":

 

"Q. News images influence how we perceive a story or individual. For example, one image might show a candidate appearing confident while in another he or she may appear befuddled or guilty. Unlike the written article, which presumably strives to acknowledge different points of view, the photo is typically a singular statement. How do photo editors walk this journalistic line?

 

-- Yosh Asato, San Francisco, Calif.

 

A. (New York Times Photo Editor) The photo editor will typically read the story and/or talk to the reporter or photographer from the scene and make a selection that is emotionally truthful."

Rick, your "reality check" is an excellent example that some type and degree of bias is inherent to any reporting an individual does. It's unsettling that you don't seem to recognize the extent to which you are looking for certain images which fit into what you think you should present to the public.

Journalists should question official versions. Government spokesmen are reassuring. They

present a facade that the journalist should attempt to penetrate.

 

News coverage is like a trial, with the forces attempting to influence an environment as the

defense and the journalist as cross-examiner. The journalist brings prejudices to a story,

but he can ask equally tough questions of all sides, not sparing his own side. It might be

impossible to remain unbiased, but the search for the truth can be credible if all

sides are held equally to account.

 

The American television news networks lost credibility not asking tough questions leading

up to and during the Iraq invasion. They catered to popular sentiment which, at the

beginning at least, was in favor of invasion. The network news organizations pursued

ratings. They spouted the official party

line of the Bush administration. Maybe they were cowed by the old cliche that it was the

news media that had turned public opinion against continuing the war in Vietnam.

"The mind uses words and pictures to create its framework to navigate through life. ... Frameworks lead to action. Action is reality"

 

Pico, yes, but it's a two-way street. Existing physical and social reality, and the perceptions of those, affect the words and pictures used. There's no *necessary* correspondence.

 

As for "terrorist", applying such to Ann C. is the equivalent of the "We are all guilty" nonsense formulation I heard right after JFK's shooting. It makes the word worthless for anything but emotional feedback, uttering it becomes the equivalent of doing a war-dance.

"Words are a better means of reaching the truth than pictures because appearances can deceive. Viewed from above water, the stick under water appears bent, even though it is not. Sometimes what you know is different from what you see."

 

That doesn't seem to bother bears catching fish. I guess they discuss refraction back in the cave with their cubs during the winter. As for "rationality", it's just logic-chopping unless grounded in a testable reality. Anyone using a computer has experienced that disconnect at times.