News- no, it's propoganda

scaeagles · 08-08-2006, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I like Reuters zero tolerance rule about altering photos. But it does make me wonder how often this has been done...

Some of the alterations are so incredibly obvious that there is certainly at least one editor that should be fired. There is either gross negligence, gross incompetence, or complicity involved.

Gemini Cricket · 08-08-2006, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Some of the alterations are so incredibly obvious that there is certainly at least one editor that should be fired. There is either gross negligence, gross incompetence, or complicity involved.

Totally. I have only seen one set of two photos. A bombed cityscape...

Alex · 08-08-2006, 08:51 AM

The flares one is not obvious. In addition to the smoke he also duplicated some of the buildings which makes everything look more destroyed as well.

Yes, it the smoke cloning was horribly obvious but I don't really blame the photo editor. One, he can't go about his job with the assumption that his own people are trying to fool him and who knows how many photographs he is having to deal with in how much time.

I really don't think outright photographic manipulation is common because the photographers know that getting caught will ruin their career (and zero tolerance really is the policy, photojournalists have lost their job for simple color correction). What is probably more common is actually staging the photo.

scaeagles · 08-08-2006, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Yes, it the smoke cloning was horribly obvious but I don't really blame the photo editor. One, he can't go about his job with the assumption that his own people are trying to fool him and who knows how many photographs he is having to deal with in how much time.

Can I ask what the job of photo editor is then? I'm not really trying to be rhetorical. Perhaps I don't understand. I would figure one of the tasks assocated with it is looking for obvious fraud such as this.

Alex · 08-08-2006, 09:43 AM

Yes it is, and I'm sure some junior editor is in serious hot water right now. But when you have sat on a flow of 25,000 photos over the last year (number made up), none of which were manipulated it is simply psychologically difficult to keep the proper level of skepticism.

The primary role of the photo editor is to 1) make sure the photo is topical and has journalistic interest, and 2) that it is is of sufficient quality for publication (in focus, reasonably color correct, horizon is level). In role #2, photo editors can approve certain modifications such as recropping, focusing, levelling, etc., but the photographers are not supposed to be making those decisions.

The various freelancers on the scene in Lebanon and Israel are each probably submitting hundreds or even thousands of photographs a day (they get paid for what is used, so throw it all at the wall) and the editor probably only has an an hour or two to go through them all, decide what will be uploaded to the wire and then get on to the next batch. He's probably primarily interested in technical details and I imagine it is easy to get into a stage where you can't see the forest for the trees.

08-08-2006, 08:51 AM	#3
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	The flares one is not obvious. In addition to the smoke he also duplicated some of the buildings which makes everything look more destroyed as well. Yes, it the smoke cloning was horribly obvious but I don't really blame the photo editor. One, he can't go about his job with the assumption that his own people are trying to fool him and who knows how many photographs he is having to deal with in how much time. I really don't think outright photographic manipulation is common because the photographers know that getting caught will ruin their career (and zero tolerance really is the policy, photojournalists have lost their job for simple color correction). What is probably more common is actually staging the photo.
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08-08-2006, 09:43 AM	#5
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	Yes it is, and I'm sure some junior editor is in serious hot water right now. But when you have sat on a flow of 25,000 photos over the last year (number made up), none of which were manipulated it is simply psychologically difficult to keep the proper level of skepticism. The primary role of the photo editor is to 1) make sure the photo is topical and has journalistic interest, and 2) that it is is of sufficient quality for publication (in focus, reasonably color correct, horizon is level). In role #2, photo editors can approve certain modifications such as recropping, focusing, levelling, etc., but the photographers are not supposed to be making those decisions. The various freelancers on the scene in Lebanon and Israel are each probably submitting hundreds or even thousands of photographs a day (they get paid for what is used, so throw it all at the wall) and the editor probably only has an an hour or two to go through them all, decide what will be uploaded to the wire and then get on to the next batch. He's probably primarily interested in technical details and I imagine it is easy to get into a stage where you can't see the forest for the trees.
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