The Distorting Mirror: Ethics and the Camera

Louis W. Hodges
Washington and Lee University

In the beginning, there were no words. As soon as there was sight, there were
images. Images are more primitive, natural and primordial than alphabets and words. As
Travis Linn (1994) puts it: Phonics and images worked for thousands of years before
alphabets appeared, indeed most of our history. They are the basics, not only for us but
perhaps for all sentient species. At first images existed in the mind only, but later on
people were able to reproduce them on the walls of caves. Here begins press
photography! When images in the mind were drawn as pictures on walls, the artist
became a communicator to anybody who would look and could understand. And you
know how the story unfolded from there: signs, symbols, paintings, architecture, music,
words, presses, and, finally, cameras. Just think of it: Kodak brought our whole species
full circle back to images.
Perhaps that is all we need to say about the appeal of pictures. It is not all we
need to say, however, about the ethical issues photojournalists both broadcast and print
must resolve these days. In what follows we shall play around a little with human
communication through words and images. From that foundation we define the moral
mission of the enterprise we call photojournalism. Based solidly within that mission,
with its specific functions and purposes, our thoughts can turn more narrowly to the
behavior of photojournalists (photographers and their editors) as they go about carrying
out their special mandate. We shall examine the two major moral issues that arise within
the whole enterprise: objectivity/accuracy, and privacy. The final section takes a brief
glimpse at the mercurial notion of "taste." [Authors' Note: Photojournalist refers to
both print and electronic. By viewer we mean those who see pictures in print or
electronic media.]

The Curious Nexus of Images and Words

A baby's first visual comprehensions consist of shapes and colors. Ontogeny

recapitulates phylogeny! (We're not kidding. Look it up.) Just as images came first and
words second in species evolution, so too they come first in individual development. By
image, of course, we mean a picture in the mind of a normal person that includes shape
and color, mostly based on sight. (We do not need here to go into the question of the role
of the other four senses in the formation of images, but it is clear that they have a role.
The blind, for example, have pictures of the world in their heads, so we know that
image formation does not depend solely upon the eye.) For [our] purposes we are
thinking simplistically of images as being the mental pictures our mind creates upon
seeing objects outside the mind. By words we mean, again simplistically, language that
involves alphabets, written and oral.
To think about the interplay of word and image in human affairs boggles the
mind. Three observations are important and relevant as a foundation for clarifying the
moral mission of photojournalism as an enterprise.
 First, through pictures people encounter the world directly and immediately;
words are arbitrarily created and are one level of abstraction from the world they
symbolize. Images just happen in people, i.e., people do not choose that they happen.
For example, an encounter with an animal, tree, or mountain is direct, immediate, and
involuntary; talking and writing about the animal, tree, or mountain are indirect,
intermediate, and voluntary. One does not have to think in order to have images of the
world, though once the image is created in the mind one can think about the image.
(Note that humans do not think about the world directly, only about the images of the
world in their heads.) Once images are stored in the mind, an individual can by an act of
will "call them up," and sometimes one can delete them though that is difficult for
images that are indelibly planted.
Because images are essentially direct, they make it possible for humans to
become one with the world in an almost literal sense. In a mystical and mysterious
way they enable people to commune join as one with the world and to identify with
it. In a way, the world enters the person. Direct experience of this sort is not unlike
Gautama the Buddha's vision of the unity of all being.
News photos are often more powerful than written stories because of this
directness and immediacy. They create in the viewer a psychological sense of being
there.
Second, images are more universal than languages. Witness international
highway signs that are often word-free. Note that smiles and tears on a human face have
meanings that transcend particular cultures. People learn their meaning through direct
encounters with others. Words, however, are culture specific, and that is a seriously
limiting factor. Perhaps that is part of what people mean when they say a picture is
worth a thousand words.
Third, though their messages overlap, pictures and words communicate different
things. In conveying feeling and eliciting emotions (sympathy, anger, horror), pictures are
usually superior to words, except for the very finest wordsmith teamed with the most
sensitive reader. On the other hand, words are inherently superior to pictures in
communicating concepts, propositions, or ideas. Thus the right words coupled with the
right pictures can communicate ideas as well as strong feelings about those ideas. A
written statement about the concept of freedom, for example, can carry greater meaning
when it is accompanied by a picture of newly released hostages.

The Function and Purpose of News Photography

For these reasons news photographs are not mere adjuncts or appendages that just
accompany stories. Pictures are integral to the larger journalistic function of telling
people about their world. Pictures can grab attention in ways that a lead paragraph
cannot, and that is part of their journalistic purpose. But their more important
communicative function is to tell a story, to communicate meaning. In doing so, though,
pictures depend upon verbal explanation, and that is why cutlines are essential.
It is interesting to note that part of the power of television news is its thorough
integration of image and word. It is also part of television's limits, because when there is
no video, television news organizations are reluctant to cover the story.
 Taken together, these considerations define the role of photography in the news
setting. That leads to a statement of the moral mission of photojournalism as an
enterprise: The moral mission of photojournalism is to serve viewers need to obtain a
truthful, accurate, and objective view of the world in which they live. [The reader should
note and compare item 3 in the National Press Photographers Association's Code of
Ethics, which says: It is the individual responsibility of every photojournalist at all
times to strive for pictures that report truthfully, honestly, and objectively.] This
statement, which you should analyze carefully and evaluate critically, is the sole criterion
by which any act committed by a photojournalist can be judged to be morally good or
bad, right or wrong. Above all else, serve the viewer. From that viewer-centered mission
follow all of the moral guides for behavior within photojournalism. For instance, it is
precisely because of this larger moral purpose that photojournalists ought never alter the
content of a picture in a way that would deceive viewers about the relevant message.
Thus the specific moral imperative is but a concrete expression of moral duties that grow
out of the grander mission. Let us now turn to two categories into which
photojournalists' duties should be divided: duties of objectivity and accuracy, and duties
to honor privacy.

The Duty to Be Accurate and Objective

Photojournalists, like all news professionals, owe their primary allegiance to the
viewers, their clients. Viewers need from them, first and foremost, the most accurate and
objective depiction of their world that is possible. Because all professional journalists
have pledged themselves to serve viewer needs, it follows that photojournalists have
accepted the duty to provide that accurate and objective depiction. That is one of the
moral bases of photojournalism; it is what defines photojournalism as a moral enterprise.
Definitions. But just what do the terms accurate and objectivemean? In photo-
communication, accuracy is obtained when the picture in the photographer's mind is
transferred as precisely as possible to the mind of the viewer. Walter Lippmann observed
(1965, pp. 3-20) that objectivity is achieved when the picture in the photographers
mind conforms as closely as possible to the real-world object being pictured. This
understanding of the concepts presupposes certain common sense notions of
epistemology: The human effort to know is the effort to make the perceptions of the
mind (the subject) conform as closely as possible to the thing known (the object). Thus,
philosophically, subjectivity of knowledge means that perceptions of the world outside
the mind may be distorted by the intrusion of preconceptions inside the mind
preconceptions held by the knower, the subject. Objectivity of knowledge means that
the influence of those preconceptions or predilections is minimized.
Purely objective knowledge is not possible. Immanuel Kant demonstrated in The
Critique of Pure Reason (1899, pp. 12-15) that all knowledge involves both a subject and
an object, which is the reason knowledge can never be totally objective. The best the
human mind can do in the relentless quest for objectivity, therefore, is to be aware of
subjective predispositions in order to minimize their distorting effect on knowledge.
That awareness is achievable if the photojournalist continually wonders about
alternative ways of viewing the objects to be pictured. The photojournalist will try to
know her subjective dispositions in order to neutralize them as much as possible.
 Just as complete objectivity is not achievable, so too is total accuracy beyond
human grasp. Just as the photographer, as a knower or subject, has incomplete
knowledge of the objects of photographs, so too the viewer, as knower or subject, can
never have completely objective perception of pictures. From the viewers perspective,
the photograph itself, not the event-in-reality, is the object; from the photographer's
perspective, events in the world are the object. This very simple and commonsensical
epistemology, showing as it does the unavoidable subjectivity of knowledge, causes one
to be amazed that photo-communication is as accurate as it is.

Altering Photos

This epistemology of subject and object is the philosophical base of the debates
that swirl around questions of digital technology in news photography. Philosophically
speaking, the new technology has presented no new moral issues at all, but it has brought
to mind again the limits of photojournalism as an enterprise, and it has triggered a highly
useful moral inquiry. Because it has not introduced any new moral issues, one
wonders what all the fuss is about.
Photojournalists and news organizations are remarkably exercised over digital
manipulation. The alarm is so loud one might reasonably conclude that the sky is falling!
Here are some headlines and statements:
Electronic Photo Manipulation: Many Are Doing It, and Editors,
Photojournalists Urge Strict Ethical Guidelines to Protect Credibility.
presstime, Feb. 1992, pp. 22-23)
Photographs That Lie: The Ethical Dilemma of Digital Retouching.
(Lasica, 1989, p. 22)
When Photographs Lie: Advances in electronic imaging are assaulting the
meaning of the picture. (Alter, 1990, p. 44)
Digital Enhancing: Journalism Crisis in the Making. (Lambert, 1991, p.
55)
Once the demons of digital manipulation are released, there will be no
putting them back and our credibility will be dead. (Long, Aug. 1990, p. 14)
The alarm is so loud one might reasonably conclude that the sky is falling!
Digital capability has obviously resurrected the old debate about manipulating
photographic images, though manipulation itself is by no means new. As Shiela Reaves
(1990, p. 44. Quote altered for clarity.) says, Photographic manipulation is not new. Its
just that it has never been so flawless and fast. Roger Karraker (1994) adds: For
decades weve been teaching students that words arent truth, that stories are one persons
version of events, and that those words and stories can be incomplete, biased and even
wrong. Photography has often escaped this dissection, under the illusion that it somehow
represents an objective truth. Now, because of the technology, we're being forced to do
what should have been done all along: teach how ALL representations of reality are
subjective and susceptible to omission, bias and error.
From the beginning, photographers have doctored photographs by using available
technology (air brush, burn, dodge, crop, paste, etc.). Even in 1864 (Lester, 1991,
pp. 95-97), a skilled technician pasted President Lincoln's head atop John Calhoun's body.
Attaching Oprah Winfrey's head to Ann-Margret's body, on TV Guides cover (Aug. 26-
Sept. 1, 1990), is new only in that it was done digitally and without flaw.

Is Digital Doctoring Really Different?

Digitizing is not truly revolutionary except in two aspects of the enterprise: It

opens new possibilities for clarifying and sharpening meaning in pictures, and it makes it
more difficult to catch scoundrels who alter photos in ways that deceive viewers. The
new technology should have no effect at all on the first and third steps in the three-stage
process by which pictures get onto the page or screen. Those steps, or decision-making
points, are: 1) taking pictures, at the scene; 2) doctoring pictures, in the darkroom
(now computer room); and 3) selecting/placing pictures, in the newsroom.
Though they reflect no moral novelty, changes are immense in what can happen at step
two, between clicking the shutter and rolling the presses or tape. (We will talk about steps
one and three later, but for now let us look at step two.)
The new digital doctoring is different from pre-digital manipulations in three
significant respects: 1) Computers enable photojournalists to manipulate images in ways
that only recently were impossible. They can now move whole objects within a single
photograph (e.g., the pyramids), add objects to it (e.g., Oprah's head to Ann-Margret's
torso), and delete objects from it (e.g., the Coke can from the coffee table). 2) Journalists
can now do those things with such skill that their manipulations are undetectable. And,
3) manipulations no longer require the photographer's darkroom skills but those of
people who possess hightech computer literacy. (With digital technology,
photographers could lose much of their control over the content of their pictures, and that
may partially explain their widespread knee-jerk reaction to digitizing.)

Manipulation Itself Not the Problem.

These changes in the technological ability to doctor photos have, to the

astonishment of some scholars, led news photographers to condemn manipulation itself.
Manipulation is simply not the issue. What is at issue is, as it has always been in
photojournalism ethics, when to manipulate and for what reasons.
As John Long, photo editor at The Hartford Courant and past president of NPPA,
has correctly noted (Aug. 1990, p. 14), the principles which have guided us for 150
years in the practice of setting up photos, dodging and burning, cropping and lens
selection are the same as those we now face in the electronic New World. Those
guiding principles are contained, at least in catechetical form, in NPPA's Code of
Ethics. Photojournalists must now discover how the existing standard to report
truthfully, honestly and objectively should guide behavior in the digital age. That is
really a rather simple task no big deal.
Existing moral standards, including truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and
objectivity, derive from the larger moral purpose of journalism: to serve the
viewers need to know their world in a way that is as free of journalistic modification or
distortion as possible. A news photo is a good photo, morally speaking, only if it does
that for viewers. It follows logically that the doctoring of pictures digitally or otherwise
 is neither good nor bad in itself; alteration is good if the manipulations no matter the
technique used succeed in depicting the world as forcefully and accurately as possible.
Manipulation is morally bad only if it distorts reality.

NPPA's Position.

The NPPA's "A Statement of Principle" (NPPA, 1991) acknowledges the point
when it states in its first paragraph that it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph
in any way that deceives the public. [Emphasis added] But it seems that NPPA itself is
out of focus when its Statement also declares: Altering the content of a photograph, in
any degree, is a breach of the ethical standards." [Emphasis added] The second
statement declares that the act of altering is wrong. The first declares that
deceiving the public is wrong, and it implies that altering which does not deceive
is acceptable. (Contradictory rules in documents like NPPAs Statement are not at all
uncommon because they have to be voted on by a group. Fortunately, such self-
contradictions usually get cleared up over time.)
It is morally indefensible, not to mention practically counterproductive, to assert
that alteration itself is wrong, because photographs are unavoidably altered, mostly for
good reasons, at every step in the process. It is indefensible philosophically because it is
a rule that in many cases would frustrate the very viewer-centered purpose for having
pictures. Alteration of what the camera caught is often necessary to focus the
viewers attention and clarify the picture's message. An example: When the space shuttle
Challenger blew up in 1986, some papers made the hazy sky bluer and thus the rocket
contrails brighter. That helped viewers see more sharply and clearly what had actually
happened. Other newspapers frowned upon the alteration for reasons that none
articulated convincingly.

Good Alteration.

Perhaps another example of a good alteration would sharpen the point. Suppose a
photographer returns to the shop only to discover that some extraneous object, such as
electrical wires, distracts the viewer from a picture's main message. The wires run across
the picture just above the president's head. Digital removal of those wires would alter
reality, in some sense of course, but, more importantly, removing them would
avoid distracting readers and would allow the message to get through more clearly. It is
not the picture's purpose to call attention to wires that clutter city streets. Had the
photographer noticed the wires before shooting, the simple solution would have been to
move a few feet to eliminate the obtrusive wires. To have done so would have been to
manipulate the photo while taking it, i.e., at step one in the process. But back in the shop
the same good purpose can now be achieved only by moving something else, pixels on a
screen. By making this alteration possible, digital technology has expanded freedom to
communicate more effectively. There is obviously no moral difference between moving
the camera while shooting and moving the wires while editing. The difference is only in
the mechanism of achieving the same goal.

Unacceptable Reasons for Altering.

 Nevertheless, a word of caution is in order here. Photographers are often tempted
to alter content for other reasons than the one we have given. Some may just want to test
their manipulative skills; others may just want to make the picture prettier. For this
reason, news photographers' predilection ought to be against alteration. Don't alter news
photos should be the rule, provided that editors recognize that there are exceptions.
Prohibition of all alteration, however, is a morally unacceptable standard because it
sometimes works against the moral mission of effective and accurate photo-
communication. Such a standard also allows photographers to deceive themselves about
choices they regularly make to obtain the results they want.
What, then, would be a more acceptable standard? We propose this: Journalists
should alter news photographs, using any available means, only in ways that enhance
communication of the meaning that the picture is intended to convey. It is deception of
the reader about meaning, not alteration of what the photographer saw through the
viewfinder, that must be avoided. In the past, this standard is what guided, allowed, and
even required, use of all technologies then available. The same standard should be
applied in the new digital world.

Alteration and Objectivity

Let us now tie questions of alteration to the issue of objectivity. Photojournalists

who alter pictures, by whatever means or techniques, always do so in terms of their own
subjective standards. From start to finish, photographs are artistic creations of
photographers, i.e., of human beings whose values, goals, skills and knowledge shape the
entire enterprise. Because photographs are created by human beings, they are subjective
from the ground up. They are in part also objective if they propose to reflect events-in-
reality, as all true news photos do.
The subjective side of photojournalism, at all of the three steps in the process, is
easy to recognize. Someone has to decide what things to cover: fires, wrecks, ribbon-
cuttings or riots. Ideally, the decision on what to cover rests upon another subjective
determination: We ought to cover those things that are important and interesting to
viewers. That choice having been made, somebody then must choose lens, color, camera
angle, shutter speed, framing, etc., all of which are technical choices that are driven by
the photographer's purpose (which is subjective by definition). Back in the darkroom
(now often the computer room) somebody, i.e., some subject, must make other
technical judgments, again based upon moral purpose, about how to doctor captured
images of that little slice of reality so that it will tell the story the journalist wants to
communicate. The professional questions are: What can we do to make this photo more
compelling, more accurate about the point we want to make, more truly reflective of the
scene we are showing? In the final step, in the newsroom, editors (read subjects) add their
own subjective judgments about which photos or video to run and about where to place
them on the page or in the newscast.
What with all that subjectivity lying around, it is astonishing that anything even
approaching objectivity ever gets into news photos. One major constraint on subjectivity,
of course, is the event-in-reality being reported. No journalist who makes a news
photograph of the president meeting with the Pope would ever publish a picture in which
Ann-Margret replaced the Pope. Another constraint on subjectivity is that while moral
judgments themselves are in fact subjective, they can be, and ought to be, grounded in
human experience of the objective world. For example, one knows that the journalists
moral imperative to be accurate is valid because experience of the objective world has
shown that inaccuracy hurts the very viewers journalists want to serve. So the point is
that photojournalists do their thing in the context of a wonderfully complex mix of
subjectivity and objectivity. Those who do not recognize that fact deceive themselves to
the detriment of themselves and the publics they serve.
The question of objectivity in news photography brings us to another kind of
situation in which objectivity is threatened: staging, or, more generally, any form of
photographers' participation in the scene they are shooting.

Staging

The very presence of a photographer on the scene inevitably changes it, but if the
photographer purposefully alters the scene being photographed it is called staging, a
practice that is almost universally condemned by photojournalists. For example, at a Los
Angeles fire scene in the fall of 1993, Mike Meadows, veteran photographer of the Los
Angeles Times, shot a powerful photo of a fire fighter cooling his head with water from a
swimming pool. The house burned brightly in the background. It was Pulitzer
quality photography. The hitch was that the newspaper found that it was staged, i.e.,
the fire fighter, Mike Alves, said that Meadows had suggested he go to the pool and pour
water on his head. The Times canceled plans to enter the picture in the Pulitzer
competition, suspended Meadows for a week and transferred him to a non-editorial job.
Calling the picture a fabrication, photo director Larry Armstrong said, We regard it as
extremely
serious. This is a firing offense. . . . When you manipulate the situation, you
manipulate the news. He added: It was probably one of the worst days of my life.
(Kurtz, 1994)
Armstrong and the Times followed the conventional wisdom. But is the
conventional wisdom wise and morally defensible? We think not. It is unreal
because, as in the Times case, the convention often denies readers access to photos that
show them an important image of a slice of life as the photojournalist wanted to show it.
Alves cooling his head was a perfectly realistic and natural thing for him to do,
something he would have done on his own had he thought of it. Alves freely chose to do
a sensible thing once Meadows had suggested it, and Meadows captured him actually
doing it. There was no deception, even though the exact scene would not have happened
had the photographer not been there. It is difficult, therefore, to understand the moral
reasoning (there seems to have been none in this case) that would justify killing the
picture, which the newspaper would have done before publication had editors known of
Meadows' role. This one appears to be yet another knee-jerk reaction based upon rigid
obedience of the orthodox rules. Readers are deprived.

The Search for Standards.

 What ought to be the standard on photographers' involvement, including staging,
in the scene they photograph? Efforts to establish a standard should take a number of
things into account. First, the predisposition reflected in the current conventional wisdom
is sound: As a general rule, photographers should try to avoid influencing the scene.
But, second, photo editors should wake up to the fact that the very presence of a
photographer affects people on the scene. People change behavior when they know that
their picture is being taken, and it is difficult to hide cameras, especially TV. That means
that photographers' influence on the scene is unavoidable, once again demonstrating the
philosophical principle of indeterminacy: It is not possible to take the full measure of
anything because the act of measuring alters the thing measured, albeit sometimes
infinitesimally. Third, the reason for photos is to help readers understand the scene. In
circumstances where an objective, accurate, and important story can be told only by
staging, it is morally proper, and sometimes obligatory, for photographers to do so.
The classic case that proves the point is the story of Joe Rosenthal, the AP photographer
who shot the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima during World War II. The first picture of the
ceremony was made by a Marine photographer, Staff Sgt. Louis Lowery, several hours
before Rosenthal arrived. Rosenthal's first picture, the one everyone knows, came from a
reenactment of the ceremony, and included a large flag Rosenthal himself requested to
replace the smaller one in the original photograph. (Lester, p. 114) The picture was
published as a news photo that inspired a generation.
One example of where it is obviously not proper to stage or reenact a scene is in
riot coverage. A photographer who missed a shot of rioters throwing bricks through
storefront windows should not ask them to do it again for the camera. The point, of
course, is that the conventional orthodoxy is too rule-bound to do moral justice to the
news photographer's journalistic role.

Photo Illustrations, Not News.

Time magazine's June 24 (1994) cover, a digitally darkened police booking shot of
O. J. Simpson, precipitated an incredibly heated reaction from photojournalists around
the country. The NPPA e-mail on the Internet fairly hummed for over a week with
negative reactions about what Time had done. NPPA's President Joe Traver wrote (NPPA
Internet, June 28, 1994) to the editor of Time: TIME magazine's OJ Simpson cover is an
abomination to the impact of the original truthful booking photo. . . . The
Moment in time we choose to record is sacrosanct. We as photographers have no
right to alter it. . . . Responding to the whole wave of criticism, James R. Gaines,
Times managing editor, wrote (1994) that the cover illustration lifted a common police
mug shot to the level of art, with no sacrifice to truth. People at the magazine obviously
viewed the cover as a photo illustration, which what they called it in their cover-
description tag line. Photojournalists on the Internet debated whether photo illustration
means anything to readers, usually deciding that it is an inadequate term to explain what
went on with a photograph. Gaines defines the term as using photography as the basis
for work in another medium, in this case a computerized image. Perhaps it would be
accurate to call it photographic art, but that would not help much because all
photography is art.
 The central issue here, as the Time cover debate so beautifully shows, is whether
different moral standards should be employed for photo-manipulation of non-news
photographs. Should magazine covers, even on news magazines, meet the same
standards of objectivity as photos in the news story? We have heard no compelling
reason to believe that they should. The purpose of covers is to grab attention, is it not?
Most people seem to think so. In this case, Time could have saved a lot of ink had it
simply pointed out that our cover is our own altered version of a police mug shot. That
is a little clearer than photo illustration.
It matters little for our purposes whether Time stepped over some moral line.
What does matter is to invite the reader to decide whether different standards ought to
apply to news pictures and illustrations. We think that standards of accuracy and
objectivity should be more strict for the former. It also matters that news photographers
be reminded, as the Time brouhaha should have, that all photographs are the products of
artists. They are always interpretations of reality, not reality itself, and for that reason can
never be objective in any pure sense.

What About Privacy?

Having examined some of the issues surrounding photojournalists' duties

regarding accuracy and objectivity, let us now look at the other set of duties, those
involving privacy. The issue of privacy places photojournalists unavoidably in moral
conflict. They owe certain duties to subjects of photographs and competing duties
to viewers. Sometimes subjects do not wish to be photographed, or to have their picture
published, especially in times of trouble, tragedy, or death. Viewers, however, need on
occasion to be informed of events that produce grief. It is often difficult to meet the
legitimate need for news and the equally legitimate need to grieve in private, free from
the penetrating eye of the camera. We can suggest no moral rule that will resolve this
conflict in all particular cases, but we can examine the moral conflict and
point to some of the concerns photojournalists ought to consider in particular
cases.
We repeat Alan Westin's (1967) definition of privacy as a moral concept.
Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for
themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is
communicated to others. Pictures are included in this definition because
they contain visual information.
Privacy issues come to the fore at two points in the photojournalistic
process: first, at the point of taking pictures, and, second, at the point of
publishing them. When photographers take pictures, the ethics of privacy involves the
issue of intrusion. When publishing pictures, the privacy issue is dissemination of private
information. Intrusion and publication of private facts are legal terms (Sanford, 1987,
pp. 428 and 441), part of the privacy tort, but they are helpful in moral analysis as well.
Look at intrusion first.

Privacy at the Scene.

 Photographers are often dispatched to scenes of tragedy, and they frequently
witness moments of personal grief that follow in the aftermath. Most of the time, people
in moments of grief do not want to be photographed and they believe they have a right
not to be. They do have that moral right, and sometimes a legal one. They also do not
want to have to cope with strangers in their midst carrying cameras, strangers who by
their purpose and demeanor seem indifferent to the concerns of those who grieve. So the
very presence of news photographers is intrusive; they are frequently not wanted. That
was demonstrated in the famous Bakersfield, California, case. A child had drowned and
his whole family had gathered around his body, which was lying in an open body bag.
News photographer John Harte was attempting to shoot the scene when sheriffs and even
strangers standing by sought to protect the family from the intrusion of Harte and his
lens. Harte got the picture, but readers throughout the country were horrified at the
intrusion upon the familys private moment. (Goodwin, 1987, p. 212).

Intrusion on Grief.

Yet the desire of news organizations to obtain photographs of what some have
called "ultimate grief" (Sherer, 1990, p. 10) seems insatiable. That desire grows in part
from the public's morbid curiosity about tragedy and death, but it also can reflect a real
need in civil societies. It is important for human beings to experience empathy and
to share grief. It is important also for people in a civil society to be
reminded of the frailty of the human condition: There but for the grace of
God go I. These are civilizing forces that help to build character and
nurture community, so there is a legitimate public interest in tragic scenes.
Much of the time it is possible for sensitive photographers to take pictures in ways
that are only minimally intrusive. The funeral of slain Virginia State Trooper Jerry Hines
on February 26, 1989, illustrates. Hines was buried in a cemetery that is owned and
maintained by a Presbyterian church. It was not a public place. The family at first
requested that there be no news coverage, but they finally agreed to allow television
cameras if the photographers would shoot from a specified spot some distance from the
gravesite. Hundreds of police officers from all over the Eastern Seaboard
attended, as did hundreds of Hines friends. All but one television photographer gladly
honored the family's request and shot from a distance. One cameraman, from a bureau 75
miles away, either did not get the message or insensitively walked around the gravesite
shooting the casket and family during the ceremony. (The scene of that cameraman made
it onto newscasts of other stations shooting from a distance, no doubt contributing to the
viewing publics perception that journalists are unfeeling animals.) Keith Humphrey
(1994), veteran reporter/anchor for WDBJ-TV, Roanoke, who also covered the
event from the distant spot, correctly observed that most of the time it is not necessary to
get that close.
Photographers should always honor requests like the Hines family made unless
there are compelling public interest reasons not to do so. (We have tried but have been
unable to imagine what public interest could be that compelling.) The moral basis for
such a rule lies in the fundamental moral dictum of respect for persons as ends in
themselves. It rests also in the increasingly recognized moral right of people in a
crowded world to be let alone.
Photographers' Defensive Arguments.

Many photographers, of course, do not accept that moral standard. Part of the
reason is that they live under heavy pressure from their news organizations. Their editors
are themselves under pressure from their superiors to have photographers get the pictures
and worry later about whether to use them. Competitive pressures come from peers who
value intimate photography as an end in itself. These realities of their work environment
push photographers in the direction of paying less attention to sensitive issues of privacy
and more to getting the job done.
The predictable response of many photographers is to engage in various
rationalizations, not reasons, that are intended to justify moral insensitivity to people's
need for privacy. One response is to assert that I'm just doing my job. The logic here
is that I am not the one at fault for intruding into your private moments; my bosses, who
define my job, are themean guys. I am but a passive instrument in their hands, and thus
innocent of any wrongdoing. This is the same defensive logic used following World War
II by Adolph Eichman when answering to his culpability in sending thousands of
Jews to Nazi gas chambers. It wont work for photographers either.
A second defensive argument, another mere rationalization that begs the moral
question, states (Sherer, p. 24) that If people are in a public place, they're fair game.
That is moral nonsense, of course. It is true that under the law people who are
photographed in a public place do not have the law of trespass to protect them, but to be
in a public place does not diminish the strength of a person's moral claim to a measure of
privacy. Moreover, there is some legal doctrine that would protect privacy in public
places. Federal courts, for instance protected Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis from
intrusions by photographer Ron Galella even in public places (Galella v. Onassis, 487 F.
2d 986 [2d cir. 1973])
Finally, some photographers argue (Sherer, p. 25) that one ought shoot now and
edit later. It is certainly true, of course, that if you do not shoot now, you have nothing
to edit later. In editing later it is possible to consider the second kind of privacy invasion,
the publication of private facts. But that begs the question of intrusion, the moral
question that has to be confronted at the scene of private moments. This excuse is used
(Marks, 1987, p. 19) to get the photographer off the moral hook entirely because
photographers usually do not have the final say in the editing process. The fact
that photographers employ excuses like these is evidence that they have a major stake in
privacy, and that they are aware of it. One wonders, therefore, why self-interest so
seldom prompts sensitivity to privacy, especially at the scene and in the physical presence
of people who are hurting. Marks may have at least part of the answer when he writes
(1987, p. 19): The television news photographer has a built-in sense of detachment.
This is a person who spends his career watching life on a two-inch black-and-
white television set. Even so, news photographers should have some sense of how their
rudeness and insensitivity cause harm to themselves and to the profession. The public
perception of journalists, especially photographers, is that they often behave like wolves
at a fresh kill. That is hardly surprising when they are seen on television screens pushing
microphones in the face of grieving victims. There seems to be a growing public
backlash (Prato, 1994, p. 48) that is getting attention among photojournalists and in their
 newsrooms.

Privacy and Decisions to Publish

We turn next to the second level of moral choice and privacy in news
photography, decisions about what images to make public, where they should appear in
the newspaper or newscast, and why. So far as privacy is concerned, at this stage the
issue is no longer intrusion (as it is in taking pictures) but publication of private facts. At
this level much larger numbers of people have a stake in the outcome. When pictures
are being taken, the stakeholders are the photographer and the subject. In decisions to
publish, the stakeholders include the photographer, photo editors, subjects and those close
to them, the news organization, viewers, and, ultimately, the general public. These
decisions potentially affect the lives of countless human beings, often in enduring ways.
(Does the image of Pennsylvania treasurer Budd Dwyer with a .357 Magnum
in his mouth just before he blew his head off linger in your mind? Does it haunt
you?)
The first moral concern, the personal perspective of decision makers, is one of
character: When photo editors are making decisions about publication, it is vital that they
be aware of the real human beings who will be affected by their choices. They cannot
know what specific individuals they affect, of course, and for that reason it is easy to
forget people and to see these choices as merely impersonal professional decisions.
The only antidote to that morally escapist mentality is constant attention to ones own
character in ways that will prevent the withering of the virtues: service to viewers,
respect for subjects and their privacy, and empathy toward human beings who have
suffered.
The moral framework of decisions about publication is the same as for other
moral choices in journalism. It consists of the tension between two moral commitments:
(1) to serve viewers and (2) to prevent avoidable harm to people in the news. Correctly
understood, this is a tension, not a contradiction, and it ordinarily does not call for an
either/or judgment, as many editors like to suppose. It is not a true dilemma, damned if
you do and damned if you don't. The situation of tension between good goals calls for
creative solutions that will achieve both goals passably well. Journalists who remain
aware of that tension seldom mess up morally. In order to keep that tension alive, when
photojournalists are making judgments about publication they should ask themselves
these questions: 1) How is this picture likely to affect viewers? Are there sound reasons
that viewers should see these images, and can we articulate what those reasons are?
2) How it is likely to affect subjects and people close to them? Will publication
cause anguish or other hurt? 3) Are we sure that the needs of viewers truly outweigh
harm to subjects in this particular case? 4) Will viewers perceive this publication as "in
bad taste"? Each of these questions raises further questions that individuals and
newsrooms can answer for their own shops.

The Ubiquitous Question of Taste

All of these moral issues involving accuracy, objectivity, deception, manipulation

and privacy are central to serious analysis of the ethics of photojournalism. Taste is
different. Though serious ethical analysis of the subject is not possible, questions of taste
in news photography are what viewers most frequently complain about. In recent
informal conversations with news ombudsmen it became apparent that there is a short list
of topics that people raise about taste: dying (uncovered bodies, blood, moment of death,
grief following death), sex (nudity, suggestive poses, exploitation of females), and
suffering (scenes of torture, mutilation, and injured people in wrecked cars). It is not
clear just why these are the recurring topics, unless, of course, it is that each involves
aspects of the basic condition. The public seems to consider them matters of taste, not of
morality.
Is there anything rational to say about taste? Yes, one thing only: taste is non-
rational. People do not decide to like ice cream; they just like it! Questions of taste in
photojournalism are important, but they are not susceptible to reasoned analysis. There is
no rational accounting for taste because taste, unlike morality, lies only in the palette of
the taster. In moral discourse, one must give defensible reasons for declaring something
right or wrong: Some behaviors e.g., torturing innocent people can be shown,
through reasoned argument, to be wrong, and any sensible person acknowledges it to be
wrong. In moral analysis it is possible to carry on meaningful arguments and inquiries
into competing judgments. The mere declaration of a moral judgment is never enough,
never the end of discourse. In matters of taste, however, none of those things are true.
When someone says, I like anchovies, or That photo is offensive and in bad taste,
that person is declaring things about her inner self, not something about anchovies or
photographs. Such statements are radically unlike moral statements because no one can
dispute them, and the case is closed.
Individual tastes in beauty, food, smell, itching and scratching, and even news
photos may be acquired or learned, but they can never be rationally chosen.
Though you may choose to try to develop a taste for it, you do not choose to like peanut
butter! Either you do or you dont, and thats it. Because individual tastes differ, the
photojournalist who tries to predict whether others will judge a photo to be tasteless is in
an impossible situation. Photojournalists may regard a picture as being tasteful, while
many viewers may see it as offensive. And tastes change like shifting sands.
John Hulteng got it right when he wrote (1985, p. 48), "Manners and mores always have
been changeable, and never more than in our present day when the passage of a half
dozen years can bring radical change. . . ." In 1984 even the P-word (penis) became
acceptable. Thanks to John Wayne Bobbitt, whose name became a household word in
1993 when his wife, Lorena, cropped his penis with a kitchen knife, even the P-word is
now acceptable. How can you possibly predict, these days, what others will find
distasteful? You cannot. In an effort to do so, journalists have grasped at the straw that
some call the bacon and eggs test (or choose your own breakfast): If it might make a
sensitive reader upchuck in the breakfast nook, dont publish it. That rule does not help
much, because some viewers nauseate more easily than others. Besides, there are times
when segments of the world are so sick and bloody that people ought to be sickened.

To Offend or Not to Offend Taste?

That raises an interesting moral issue: Do people have a moral obligation to
others not to be aesthetically offensive? The answer is simple and clear: Sometimes. At
other times people, particularly journalists, have the affirmative moral duty to offend
taste. There are two reasons: First, objectivity. Journalists who are committed to a
realistic or objective depiction of the world as all responsible journalists are have the
duty to reveal the world as it is, warts and all. If the real-world scene is distasteful, so be
it; run it. Pictures of "distasteful" scenes are not necessarily in bad taste. Second,
deception. Journalists have neither authority nor sufficient talent to sanitize the world for
viewers. Trying to clean up images for consumption at breakfast is to engage in
deception, a moral no-no in journalism if there ever was one. Pictures of pitiful,
emaciated, fly-covered and starving children in Ethiopia, as horrible as they were,
aroused the world to action. Herein lies the positive moral duty to offend taste if the
occasion calls for it, viewer complaints be damned.
The other side of the coin is that it is never morally acceptable to show bad taste
in order to sensationalize, to exploit either the people in pictures or those who see them.
Editors are properly concerned about publishing pictures that invite complaints about
taste, but they can easily recognize the moral difference between publishing to
sensationalize and publishing to inform and arouse indignation over injustice. It is rarely
a difficult call.

Summary Conclusion

We began by recalling the role of visual communication in the evolution of the

human species, and from that to the use of visuals in contemporary journalism. The focus
narrowed as we looked into some guiding axioms: accuracy/objectivity, and privacy. We
ended with taste, the issue that viewers most commonly complain about. Within those
boundaries you can work out for yourself the moral rules, principles, and practices by
which you want to govern your own conduct as photojournalist. That's a worthwhile and
exciting venture. Go for it!

REFERENCES

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Electronic Photo Manipulation: Many Are Doing It, and Editors, Photojournalists Urge Strict
Ethical Guidelines To Protect Credibility. presstime, February 1992, 22-23.

Gaines, James R. To Our Readers, Time, July 4, 1994.

Goodwin, H. Eugene. Groping for Ethics in Journalism. 2nd ed. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State
University Press, 1987.

Hulteng, John L. The Messenger's Motives: Ethical Problems of the News Media.
2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1985.

Humphrey, Keith. By telephone, 14 June 1994.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Rev. ed. Translated by J.M.D. Meikeljohn. New
York: The Colonial Press, 1899.

Karraker, Roger. By Internet, May 15, 1994.

Kurtz, Howard. L.A. Times Gets Burned by Disaster Photograph. The Washington Post, 2
February 1994, D1.

Lambert, Peter. Digital Enhancing: Journalism Crisis in the Making. Broadcasting, 16

December 1991, 5556.

Lasica, J.D. Photographs That Lie: The Ethical Dilemma of Digital Retouching. Washington
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Lester, Paul. Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates Publishers, 1991.

Linn, Travis. From JOURNET, Jan. 1994.

Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: The Free Press, 1965, 3-20.

Long, John. Truth and the new technology. News Photographer, August 1990, 14-15.

Marks, Jeffrey A. TV News Photographer as Equipment: A Response. Journal

of Mass Media Ethics, Spring/Summer 1987, 18-20.

National Press Photographers Association, 1948. NPPA Code of Ethics. Durham,

N.C.

Prato, Lou. It Was Like a Shark Attack. American Journalism Review, May 1994, 48.

Reaves, Shiela. "Digital Retouching." In NPPA Special Report: The Ethics of

Photojournalism, edited by Paul Martin Lester, 42-49. Durham, N.C.: The
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Sanford, Bruce W. Libel and Privacy: The Prevention and Defense of

Litigation. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall Law and Business,
1987, 427-476.

Sherer, Michael D. Bibliography of Grief. In NPPA Special Report: The

Ethics of Photojournalism, edited by Paul Martin Lester, 10-15. Durham,
N.C.: The National Press Photographers Association, 1990.

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NPPA Special Report: The Ethics of Photojournalism, edited by Paul
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Case No. 1
(Authors Note: The Fresno Bee asked readers about this case, June 20, 1993.)

An elderly husband and wife have become innocent victims of a robbery and
bloodbath at an enclosed mall. Three youths fired random shots into the crowd as they
dashed out of a jewelry store. Several shots struck the man in his back and one hit the
woman in her head. The two died and fell forward onto the pavement.
A photographer, who learned about the killing through the police radio in her car,
was at the mall within minutes. She took a number of pictures, but the most compelling
is that of the husband and wife. The picture shows them on the pavement, arms above
their heads, hands joined in death as they were during the couple's final walk. Faces are
obscured, but the man's light-colored shirt is clearly soaked with blood, and the pavement
is heavily splattered.
The photo is a graphic description of the tragedy.

QUESTIONS:
Supposing that you are the photo editor:
(1) Would you approve its prominent use in color on the front page?
(2) Who would be harmed/helped if you publish?
(3) Are anybodys rights at stake?

Case No. 2

It was a compelling photo of the finish line in the Mississippi state track meet, the
end of the 100-yard dash. Two young men, legs churning, strain showing on their faces,
crossed the line neck and neck, a photo finish.
The photographer developed it and the photo editor quickly approved it, just after
deadline and without careful scrutiny by either, for the front of the sports section. This
was an important contest.
The state edition was out, distributed statewide, and the Jackson city edition was
ready for the press when the phones began ringing. One of the runners the winners
penis was dangling in full view below his running shorts.
Embarrassed editors stormed into the newsroom, removed the picture from
the paper, and destroyed the negatives.
All of this happened before digital alteration came into being. Suppose you are a
photo editor and the same picture came across your desk today. Should you alter it
digitally? Kill it? Crop it?
At the 1993 meeting of the Virginia Press Photographers Association, NPPA past
president John Long said that he would not alter the picture but would crop it so as to
show just the torso. Many photographers agreed. No one could present a satisfactory
reason why alteration by scissors was acceptable while alteration by computer was not.
Can you give a reason?