Screenshots: Frontpage news-photos

Digital manipulation of photo-journalism... ( 5 )

You have to pull out all your years of photography skills to discuss these two frontpage news photos.

PICTURE 1: New Straits Times, August 3, 2005 Frontpage

PICTURE 2: New Straits Times, February 9, 2006 Frontpage

PICTURE 1: How do you shoot Putrajaya and KLCC Twin Towers, which are some 50km apart, in one picture frame with a time lapse of one hour in between? Shooting against the sun, how do you not get a silhouette assuming a flashgun was even used when the frontpage picture was taken at the material time?

It's noted that nothing was mentioned in the newspaper of the day that the frontpage photo was a montage.

PICTURE 2: Kuching folks should tell - was the Sarawak Tribune signboard of shoplot width actually present at the newspaper's office complex which also houses Utusan Sarawak? Were the policemen at the foreground of the picture actually present when the frontpage photo was captured at the material time?

Again, readers were not advised in the newspaper of the day that the frontpage photo was a montage or otherwise.

Can we be sure that textual manipulation does not start where and when manipulated photography ends? The verdict is out.

Is The NST serious about what it professes to be: 'Malaysia's newspaper of record'? We don't know. But by 'doing the right thing', for example by show us the CF card that kept those two frontpage press photos, may help put the record straight.

Press photogs conscious of journalistic ethics ought to share their views unless all are already numbed by the system. Nobody can stand up better for their profession but the practitioners themselves. The US National Press Photograohers Association (NNPA) is a good role model.

In 1999, John Long, Ethics Co-Chair and Past President of NPPA, made an observation in a training video titled: Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography, in which he said:

"One of the major problems we face as photojournalists is the fact that the public is losing faith in us. Our readers and viewers no longer believe everything they see. All images are called into question because the computer has proved that images are malleable, changeable, fluid."

It holds water seeing what we have repeatedly seen in Malaysia.

Comments

Now I will never ever going to believe whatever I see in the pictures shown in the New Straits Times.

Posted by: streetz | April 6, 2006 10:25 AM

Kuching folk here. No, the fake signboard with the coat-of-arms was not present.

Posted by: NSDS3HvLDjJd | April 6, 2006 12:25 PM

It is sad indeed that once the most respected newspaper has gone that low! The shocking part is they did it so blatantly,I am sure the Group Editor knew what is going on and he owe his readers an explaination or else RESIGN lah.
How many of you feel like Streetz that you will never ever going to believe whatever you see in the pictures shown in the New Straits Times?

Posted by: cyleow | April 6, 2006 12:47 PM

New Straits Times reported on Plagarism in universities, etc. I think huh, they themselves should learn not to be copy kat lah.....

apalah!!

anyway, apa yang editor buat sebelum publication? Tidur kah ?

Posted by: swee_ann_tweety@hotmail.com | April 6, 2006 03:14 PM

Goodness gracious, the papers have been taking us for a ride. Ouch!!

Mr CY Leow, for the benefit of the readers, can tell us if doctored pictures are norm in foreign reputable papers ( The Guardian, The independent, NY Times, The Times etc)

How about the internet, i mean..Yahoo News Pictures. DO you think they're doctored too?

What about Time magazine, Newsweek or even LIFE mags...

Seems that our local Fourth Estate has lost its credibility. Sad indeed...

Posted by: dr.strangelove | April 6, 2006 03:27 PM

Hi Dr… fact is magazines do it all the time, newspapers DO IT sometimes but it is the way they did it and they will let the readers know they DID IT; that is the difference! But mind you, they DO NOT DO IT like New Straits Times!
Hillary Raskin, Deputy Photo editor of Time once said, “When we use a photo that has been significantly altered, we will caption it as a photo illustration, digitally altered, double exposure or any number of other descriptions to let the reader know it is not as real as it seems. This would be the case both on the cover and if the same altering was done inside the magazine. But the use of digitally altering an image inside the magazine is very infrequent.We adhere to the principle that a news/documentary-style image is what it is and should not be altered. It might be cropped, which may or may not give the viewer a different point of view from the intent of the photo.”
If you go and take a read at http://larrysface.com/deception.htm you will realise Nat Geo, Newsday, Time, GQ, London Evening Standard, and many more; DID IT and got caught ;-)
The L.A.Times incident not that long ago make interesting reading.

Posted by: cyleow | April 6, 2006 04:09 PM

At work today, continuing scanning the hundreds of OLD heritage negatives from a Wellington archives; I can’t help but sigh of those “good old days” when historical events were put on black and white films!
I am FORTUNATE to be able to look at THOUSANDS of New Zealand historical images on negatives and GLASS PLATES, digitizing them give me an enormous sense of AWE what it was like a near century ago.

Posted by: cyleow | April 6, 2006 04:26 PM

Thanks CY....

Posted by: dr.strangelove | April 6, 2006 09:31 PM