Text adapted from Aim for the Heart, a guide for photojournalists, reporters, and producers (Bonus Books, 2002).
The National Press Photographers Association states in its Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics: “As journalists we believe the guiding principle of our profession is accuracy; therefore, we believe it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way that deceives the public.” That statement of principle was adopted in 1991.
The NPPA Code of Ethics elaborates, “As journalists, we believe that credibility is our greatest asset. In documentary photojournalism, it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way (electronically or in the darkroom) that deceives the public. We believe the guidelines for fair and accurate reporting should be the criteria for judging what may be done electronically to a photograph.”
I believe these standards apply not just to still pictures, but to video. The code certainly makes no reference differentiating one side of the profession from the other.
With the NPPA Code of Ethics as our guide, it is not difficult to see the problems that arise when photojournalists/editors begin to “slide” or add audio or alter video by special editing effects in their stories. It is, quite simply, “digital manipulation,” just as NPPA mentioned in that prophetic 1991 code.
On Feb. 13, 2002, Las Vegas television station KLAS, following up on a shooting that had occurred inside a Vegas casino a year earlier, ran head-on into the problems that arise when editors add audio. The station had obtained surveillance camera video of an arrest in the casino. Casino cops were trying to apprehend a man who was suspected of a “distract and grab” crime, where he and his partners would distract gamblers and grab their buckets of coins. When police moved in on the bad guy, he pulled a gun and fired off a couple of shots. One of the shots hit a woman gambling nearby and killed her. An officer also was hit.
The TV station obtained the video after it had been used in court. The station aired the shooting. But, as you know, surveillance video is usually silent. The station added the sound of gunshots and slot machines. There is no doubt that there were two shots. There is no doubt about what slot machines and casinos sound like. But the sounds did not exist on that tape.
The news director at the station later told me that the editing mistake happened because his station had gone too long without a discussion about editing standards. The station said publicly that the sounds should not have been added. The news director has urged other newsrooms to have strong standards in place before they face similar problems.
Which, of course, raises the question, “What are your standards? I offer a few ideas:
1) Do not add. Don’t add sounds that did not exist. Don’t add sounds that you obtained at another scene or from another time/place if adding the sounds might mislead the viewer. This kind of “audio sliding” has become both easy and common in television news, and it is a kind of deception that is invisible to the viewer. With the advent of digital editing, I have noticed a lot of television editors, photojournalists, and reporters “sliding audio” in stories. The editor takes a sound that occurred in one scene and edits it into a scene in which it did not exist. Here are some examples of this technique:
The photojournalist is taking pictures of a storm. The photojournalist gets great sound of the wind howling and rain pelting the street. A few minutes later, the photojournalist gets a great picture of trees bending in the wind, but the sound is no good, somebody nearby is hollering, a truck is passing behind him. He decides to marry the great sound with the great picture in the edit booth.
This is an acceptable editing technique in some newsrooms. But The Poynter Institute’s Chip Scanlan warns against “reconstituting the truth” in editing. Scanlan says when journalists reassemble reality they have to take great care not to distort or mislead viewers about what happened. For example, it would have been unacceptable for the editor to borrow sound of a howling wind from a story he shot six months ago during another storm.
2) Be judicious in your use of music and special sound effects. When you add music to a story, the viewer must understand you have added the sounds. Music, especially, has the ability to send complex and profound editorial messages. In their book “The Elements of Journalism,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel suggest that one of the principles of journalism should be “Do not add.” That means do not add something to a story that didn’t happen. Kovach and Rosenstiel write: “This goes further than never invent or make things up, for it also encompasses rearranging events in time or place or conflating (combining into one composite) characters or events. If a siren rang out during a TV story, and for dramatic effect it is moved from one scene to another, it has been added to that second place. What was once fact has become fiction.” (“Elements of Journalism,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Crown Publishers, New York, 2001, page 79.)
A good question to ask in such circumstances is what would the viewer say if he or she knew the truth about how this story was gathered and edited? Would the viewer feel deceived or tricked? When adding any sound or effect, it should be obvious and apparent to the viewer that the journalist has chosen to alter the scene or sound.
Rosenstiel and Kovach say, “Journalists should not deceive (the viewer). Fooling people is a form of lying and mocks the idea that journalism is committed to truthfulness.” This principle is closely related to “Do not add.”
Kenny Irby, the group leader for visual journalism at The Poynter Institute says, “Ask yourself, is this what I saw through my viewfinder when I took the picture?” If the photojournalist records music that occurred at the scene of his or her story, then that is ambient sound that might ethically be edited into the story. But if the music is a soundtrack audio recording, then the journalist must ask whether the music adds an editorial tone to the story that would not be present without the music.
3) Use special editing sparingly and carefully. Slo-mo, special lighting, and unusual angles can all send subtle or even not so subtle messages to the viewer about a person’s guilt, power, or authority. Just highlighting an individual or object in a photograph can attract undue attention to that aspect of a photograph. Even the propaganda photographers in Nazi Germany understood the power of dramatic angles and lighting that made speakers look more powerful.
4) Exercise extreme care when altering an image. Remember that when O.J. Simpson was arrested a news magazine darkened the mug shot photograph. It made Simpson look sinister.
5) Use File Tape Sparingly. The repeated use of file tape could cause undue harm to people who have already suffered a profound loss. When TV stations use file tape over and over, it can also harm the people who are shown repeatedly in tragic circumstances or embarrassing situations, sometimes months or even years after the event occurred.
Sociologists and ethics experts say the overuse of images of tragedy or even the use of more routine images of generic crime scenes, fires, and other emergencies can skew the viewers perceptions of how much danger they are in when they travel or just venture outside their homes. When viewers see a non-stop diet of video of people being arrested, carried off in body bags, or using drugs, the public naturally demands longer prison terms, stricter penalties, and more cops on the street. That barrage of images contradicts the Justice Department’s own figures, which show violent crime and juvenile crime are on a steep decline in America and have been on that track since the middle 1990s. (Violent Crime Trends 1973-2000, United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.)
There are other reasons not to use file tape. Audience researchers find that the repeated use of file tape sends a signal that nothing is new, even if the stories contain new information. I would suggest these guidelines to help newsrooms make ethical decisions about how, when, and how often to use file tape:
- What is the journalistic purpose for using file tape? Ask each time you use an image: “What truths does this image tell that would not be told if we didn’t use the picture?”
- How does the truth of the file picture measure up to the potential harm the continued use of the image might cause to those who were involved in the story?
- How clear is it to the viewer that the file tape is, in fact, historic, and not shot today?
- What “harm” could the use of file video cause to the viewer by repeatedly showing disturbing pictures?
- What discussion does your newsroom have about how long graphic images are “news” and when they become “file?”
- What obligation do you have to notify the people who are shown in file tape that you intend to use their images again, sometimes weeks or months after an incident?
- What guidelines does your newroom have about the use of file tape in promotions?
Final Thoughts
Often the viewing public remembers the visual images in a story long after viewers forget the copy/text portions. That is testament of the underlying power of “the visual.” Photojournalists and editors should exercise the same level of ethical professionalism and accuracy in editing as reporters and producers would be expected to exercise in their choice of words, soundbites, and facts.
Ask yourself if your story would pass “the front-page frisk.” How willing would you be to explain your editing process if the local newspaper called you and started asking you questions for a front-page newspaper story? How willing would you be to reveal your editing techniques to the public?
Journalism is essential to a self-governing democracy. We can only fulfill our critical role of informing the public if the public believes what we put on the air. Anything that journalists, including photojournalists and editors, do to erode that level of trust is harmful — not just to the craft of journalism, but to the democracy which it serves.
Al Tompkins is the Group Leader for Broadcast and Online at the Poynter Institute. He is the author of Aim for the Heart, a new book for photojournalists, reporters and producers. Al worked as a local TV journalist for 24 years and has been a teacher at national NPPA conventions and the flying Short Course. In 2001, Al was awarded NPPA’s National J. Winton Lemen Award for meritorious service to NPPA.
