The Reliability of Newspaper Publications

From the image, what’s missing?
 

 

Both images source from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton

 

The Guardian (2011), a weekly newspaper publisher has published news about the Orthodox Jewish Newspaper apologized for the deletion of both women in an image released by The White House -  the US secretary of state: Hillary Clinton and the Counterterrorism director: Audrey Tomason.

This image captured a historic moment where President Barack Obama and his staffs were monitoring in the real time of the operation by navy Seals that killed Osama bin Laden. Thus, the image represents as apprehend the mastermind of the September 11 attacks after the decade-long US effort (The Guardian, 2011).

However, as a traditional policy of not printing women’s images of the Yiddish language publication, Di TzeiTung altered the image with the explanation of the cultural conflict with its most Jewish readers’ belief that showing images of female form is 'immodest'.

 

Today, the emergence of advance digital photography and technology do offer the opportunity for photo manipulation, reproduction and transmission of images (Wikipedia, 2011). As photojournalism is about presenting an accurate image and viewer’s ability to interpret it (Bersak, 2006, p.7), even Di TzeiTung was trying to avoid the cultural conflict with its readers; the action of photo manipulation did raise some ethical issues. According to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA, 1991), it states the guidance as journalists should keep the subject matter accurate and comprehensive, avoid presenting own biases and do not manipulate images that can mislead viewers. The 2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies is a notable example of ethical issue due to photo manipulation.

 

In fact, newspaper works to provide the function of reporting the accurate information and uncover the truth to its readers.  In this case, it is quite disappointing and upset as the issues of photo manipulation happened in the newspaper publications.

Hence, if the Yiddish publication continues to do so in the future, the trust from its reader will start to crumble as readers may fear to receive not trustworthy reports which being manipulated in its news again.

Image source from: http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/04/05/we-trust-brands-on-social-networks-almost-as-much-as-we-trust-peers/

Reference List:

Bersak, RD 2006, Ethics in Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future, Lodon, pp. 2-71, [ONLINE] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/Bersak_CMS_Thesis_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 9 November 11].

Donald R. Winslow. 2006. Reuters Apologizes Over Altered Lebanon War Photos; Suspends Photographer. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/reuters.html. [Accessed 10 November 11].

NPPA (1991), Digital manipulation code of ethics, National Press Photographers Association. [ONLINE] Available at:

http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/digitalethics.html [Accessed 9 November 11].

The Guardian (2011), Orthodox Jewish paper apologizes for Hillary Clinton deletion, Associated Press. [ONLINE] Available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton

[Accessed 7 November 11].

Wikipedia. 2011. Photojournalism. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism. [Accessed 08 November 11].