Week 3 Entry

The main points of photojournalism ethics seem like such simple ones to follow, but it goes to show how competitive everything is now. The first of the two Poynter articles points out that first and foremost, photographs are still regarded as virtual reproductions of an event, and that trust can not be betrayed. That means not altering the photographs so that they become something they aren’t supposed to be. The old rule of thumb still applies to any of these ethics that if you are in question about whether something is right or wrong, either ask someone else whose opinion you can trust or just don’t alter it or print it at all. Altering digital photographs is strictly confined to “fictional imagery”, Poynter says, and the decision to alter at all needs to be well calculated and thought through.
This is important to photojournalists and their news outlets in order to keep themselves credible, as well as in business period. It took only one false photo alteration by Dan Rather and his team to get them all sent out of town, going to show how serious the topic is. These guidelines also apply to PR and advertising students, who face serious copyright infringement and other lawsuits for altering the wrong images, or taking good images and altering them in the wrong way. Whether it’s in brochures, print ads, online ads, etc., all journalism concentrated students need to be full aware of the consequences for being unethical, no matter how competitive their field is.

Week 2 Entry

Copyright-Exclusive rights given to an individual or group to protect their created idea, image, or other piece of work that can only be reproduced with permission from the original creator.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/28/ramsey.arrest/index.html, Picture 3 in slideshow

http://www.denverpost.com/jonbenet Picture on main page

These two pictures appear to be, upon review of the rules of copyright, clear cut examples of copyright infringement. According to the exclusive coverage given to the photography company ZUMA by the child beauty pageants, the only people allowed to distribute the pictures are the photographers who originally took them for ZUMA. For the first picture, the only attribution given is to KUSA news, but no credit back to ZUMA, and the second picture has no attribution on it at all. What appears to be happening is that the various news sources, especially CNN and the Denver Post shown here, are taking advantage of ZUMA’s reluctance to take this case to court and using loopholes that don’t apply in this case, such as fair use and public police documents.