Photojournalism: Keeping it real

 

The Organization of Ethical Photojournalism

 

 The Organization for Ethical Photojournalism address' issues of image manipulating by a
politically propaganda driven press creating stories out of images rather than documenting the truth. Editorializing The News. Political Propaganda, Sensationalism, Fraudulently Manipulated Images.

   In the mid to late nineties the digital camera began to change photography. As was predicted the impact on photojournalism has been profound. Digital image capture has raised many ethical concerns in the journalism industry as a whole.

 More often than not a press photographer has little control over how their images are used, However they are the first to take the brunt of blame.

 

  The purpose of this organization is to detect and address these issues of image manipulating and what is tantamount to a propaganda driven press creating stories and slanted editorials from the images of photojournalist rather than documenting the truth. News agencies in some instances have become a political arm of a social movement all unto itself. Creating or bending the news from images either modified taken out of context. 

 

 What we do as an organization is inspect images published by the news outlets for signs of manipulation or misrepresentation, sometimes acting on tips from the public and even news insiders in order to bring these fraudulent representations to the light. Though we are no longer able to publish images and our our findings on the internet we are still active.

 

 

Photojournalism - Photojournalists - Photography

 
 photojournalism pho·to·jour·nal·ism (fō'tō-jûr'nə-lĭz'əm) n. journalism that presents a story primarily through the use of pictures.

 

 Photojournalism is a particular form of photography (the collecting, editing, and presenting of images for publication or broadcast as news material ) that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, and in some cases to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such as documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by the qualities of:
 Relevance — the images have meaning in the context of a published chronological record of events.
 Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict.
 Narrative — the images combine with other news elements, to inform and give insight to the viewer or reader.

 

 Photojournalists must make photographic decisions instantly and be in complete command of their equipment, often while exposed to the same risks (natural or man made disasters, war, rioting, crime etc.) that are faced by participants and the copy collecting journalists. The fact that they often do not have the option to stand back or wait until the dangers of an event are over dictates they may take even more risks.
 

 The Photojournalistic Approach to Ethics

 

 In our opinion the only image manipulation acceptable in an image depicting news events (straight photojournalism). are as follows:

See: Guide lines set by  Digital Custom Corporation

 

 Any Digital Postproduction beyond these are unacceptable. As photographers / photojournalist we are not always in control of how the images we capture are used and manipulated however we are responsible to speak out and must be heard on this subject.

 

 The Organization of Ethical Photojournalism all volunteer staff

 

 The Organization of Ethical Photojournalism is run by an all volunteer staff of photographic industry professionals and concerned citizens.

 

 This Organization is supported by private anonymous donations and the generosity of a few volunteers. Sometimes we have to scrape up spare change to keep it all going.

 

A special thank you to:

 Simple Designs of California who donated their professional services aiding in the design of this website free of charge. Clair Hiess who is also instrumental in this sites continued functioning.

D. Colegrove Professional Photojournalist / Photographer based in Ventura California and Wedding Photographer in Southern California who inspired us to "carry on... No matter what they do to you"