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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday June 14 2020, @04:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the jornalistic-integrity dept.

Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle's protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone:

Fox News published digitally altered and misleading photos on stories about Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in what photojournalism experts called a clear violation of ethical standards for news organizations.

As part of a package of stories Friday about the zone, where demonstrators have taken over several city blocks on Capitol Hill after Seattle police abandoned the East Precinct, Fox's website for much of the day featured a photo of a man standing with a military-style rifle in front of what appeared to be a smashed retail storefront.

The image was actually a mashup of photos from different days, taken by different photographers — it was done by splicing a Getty Images photo of an armed man, who had been at the protest zone June 10, with other images from May 30 of smashed windows in downtown Seattle. Another altered image combined the gunman photo with yet another image, making it appear as though he was standing in front of a sign declaring "You are now entering Free Cap Hill."

[...] The image, as displayed on the Fox News website, was spliced with other photos, including a photo of a smashed retail storefront in May, making it look as though the scene was all playing out concurrently in the autonomous zone. "It is definitely Photoshopped," confirmed Ryder. "To use a photo out of context in a journalistic setting like that seems unethical."

[...] "I think it's disgraceful propaganda and terribly misrepresentative of documentary journalism in times like this, when truth-telling and accountability is so important," said Kenny Irby, a photojournalism ethics educator and consultant. "There is no attribution. There is no acknowledgment of the montage, and it's terribly misleading."

Akili Ramsess, executive director of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), said ethical standards clearly prohibit alteration of photos in news accounts.

Previously:
(2020-06-12) Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @09:14AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @09:14AM (#1007709)

    I just checked some images on cnn.com and found several different software packages were used for different photgraphs, and several without any data showing what they were processed with.

    You should realise there is no such thing as an unprocessed photograph.

    Every photograph is cropped in the sense that a camera has a limited field of view and can't possibly show everything in a scene. Is adjusting the field of view afterwards somehow more misleading than adjusting it while taking the photo? In Belgium there have been discussions about newspaper photos of shopping streets in which people appeared not to keep 1.5 m distance, which turned out to give a false impression because an extreme telephoto lens was used, which makes people appear much closer together than they actually are. That was a very narrow field of view, extreme cropping while taking the photograph.

    In the raw image the camera sensor records each pixel represents either red, green or blue. The full color pixels are calculated from that, and for that different interpolation algorithms with different outcomes exist. Without applying a contrast curve at all to the raw pixel data photographs would be mostly black. When the camera produces a jpeg all that is done using interpolation algorithms, curves and settings the camera manufacturer chose. If the photographer chooses to work with raw images different (and often better) algorithms are used in the software used to process the photograph.

    Before digital photography there were different types of film to choose from, different chemicals to develop them, which could be used with different temperatures, concentrations and durations to influence things like the sensitivity, graininess and contrast of the film. There even was a technique that while developing the film enhanced contours lines, much like sharpen filters in image editors do. Then there were different kinds of paper to print on, with again a choice of chemicals, concentrations etc. With color photography enlargers had color filters influencing the result.

    Photography *is* image processing, it's utterly impossible to produce a photograph without doing processing, and that processing cannot be done without making choices in how it is done.

    What matters in news media is that the photographs are a faithful representation of a situation, they document it. Cropping an image may be a lie if it leaves out something important, but it may also be a focus on what's important and only leave out a part that's utterly irrelevant to the situation. A well chosen contrast curve may emphasize something important going on in the photo and thus may tell the story rather than lie about it. It can also be used to hide something important and tell a lie. This kind of processing/editing isn't inherently good or bad, but it has to be done with integrity.

    What FOX did was insert a guy with a gun that wasn't there. That doesn't emphasize or hide anyting about the situation as it was, it adds something that simply wasn't there and that's highly relevant to how it is perceived. That's a blatant lie.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:05PM (#1007776)

    Is this the same news organization that said Birmingham (UK) was a no-go zone under Sharia law?

    The only way the viewers will care about being told lies is if it hurts them financially. They are obviously the suckers in the game, but how to exploit them?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:16PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:16PM (#1007782)

    What FOX did was insert a guy with a gun that wasn't there. That doesn't emphasize or hide anyting about the situation as it was, it adds something that simply wasn't there and that's highly relevant to how it is perceived. That's a blatant lie.

    What Fox News did was create and promulgate Fake News.

    Let me be clear here what I mean when I say "Fake News" [c-span.org] (~27:30):

    [Fake news] means a lie, deliberately concocted, from whole cloth, seeded out into the mediasphere through the Internet or through other willing minions out there, to pollute the public debate. Intentionally, knowingly a lie. It is not a bias story. It is not an erroneous story. It is not an error that can be retracted. It is not a story that was spun in a way you happen to not like. None of that is fake news. Fake news is an intentional lie, created to mislead people and placed out into the information spheres so that you will find it.

    These photos fit that definition pretty exactly.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday June 15 2020, @12:25AM (3 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday June 15 2020, @12:25AM (#1007952) Journal

      These photos fit that definition pretty exactly.

      --
      Some drink from the fountain of knowledge. Others gargle.

      • (Score: 1) by Fragholio on Monday June 15 2020, @03:44AM (2 children)

        by Fragholio (6822) on Monday June 15 2020, @03:44AM (#1008003)

        I'm glad someone other than me remembers that one. Ever forward, Mr. Determined!

        Also, if "fake news" is so important to call out, why hasn't Trump called this one out? I'm being serious.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @05:23AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @05:23AM (#1008018)

          Also, if "fake news" is so important to call out, why hasn't Trump called this one out? I'm being serious.

          I'll give you a serious answer then. Trump doesn't "call this one out" because Trump doesn't actually call out "fake news." Trump calls out what he *calls* fake news. What he calls out is almost always generally factual reporting about stuff that reflects negatively on Donald Trump or were spun in a way he doesn't happen to like.

          Note the definition of "Fake News" [c-span.org] I posted earlier (the best definition of fake news I've heard):

          [Fake news] means a lie, deliberately concocted, from whole cloth, seeded out into the mediasphere through the Internet or through other willing minions out there, to pollute the public debate. Intentionally, knowingly a lie. It is not a bias story. It is not an erroneous story. It is not an error that can be retracted. It is not a story that was spun in a way you happen to not like. None of that is fake news. Fake news is an intentional lie, created to mislead people and placed out into the information spheres so that you will find it.

          See the difference? Trump doesn't call out actual fake news, he calls stuff that's *not* fake news 'fake news'.

          As such, it's no surprise that he doesn't call this out -- because he pretty much *never* calls out actual fake news. Make sense?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @08:20AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @08:20AM (#1008045)

            Alternative facts?