Interesting article today about photojournalism, but I think it also applies to video as well. I always think about criminal cases, when does someone alter a digital photo to achive their desired results? This is the stuff that scares me about technology, especiality digital tech....
http://www.newsweek.com/id/152989 When a mysterious creature washed up on the shores of Montauk, N.Y., in late July, it became an instant media sensation. After the photograph of the Montauk Monster ran on Manhattan media blog Gawker, local Long Island newspapers were on the story. CNN and Fox News quickly followed, hosting experts to hash out what exactly this unrecognizeable being was. Perhaps a bloated raccoon, as Discover Magazine claimed and Jeff Corwin told Fox? A dead dog that had decayed for weeks? Or, the latest spin: The creature was simply fake, a prop in a movie's viral marketing campaign, and the media had been duped. The public's skepticism over whether or not they can believe what they see in photographs isn't unwarranted. Just last week, Beijing organizers admitted to using "previously recorded footage" and computerized images during the Olympic opening ceremony to enhance the quality of fireworks for broadcast on television. A month before that, a doctored photograph of Iranian missiles turned up on front pages across the globe. The alterationan extra missile added to the imagewas outed within hours of the photograph's publication. "With technology, you can make the moment anything you want it to be," says John Long, the ethics committee chair for the National Press Photographers Association. "Our credibility has been stretched in so many ways, so I don't think the public has a great deal of faith in us." He admits the past year hasn't been the best for photojournalism's credibility but doesn't think the future is particularly gloomyit just puts the burden on the photojournalist to tell the truth, rather than on the photograph itself. "Just like we trust the reporter to represent what they see accurately, we're going to have to develop that same relationship with photographers," he says. NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff spoke with Long about why the credibility of photojournalism has fallen, whether or not doctored photographs are more likely to get caught these days, and how photographers can reclaim the public's trust. Excerpts: for the rest of the article follow the link http://www.newsweek.com/id/152989 Heath http://batmangeek.com http://heathparks.com
