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August 09, 2006
Guiding Principles vs. Bias
The response to the "Passion of the Toys" post is far beyond what I imagined, and I'm grateful to the many blogs who have linked, and all of you who have taken the time to visit and comment. It's much appreciated.
Since Charles Johnson at lgf pointed out the obvious photo manipulation of Adnan Hajj, bloggers have been looking over pictures from the conflict in Lebanon with a very critical eye.
Allah has a great summary of the various blog discoveries to date. It's pretty damning stuff, and calls into question the editorial process used by Reuters, the Associated Press and the New York Times when deciding what photos to put on the wire.
This series, found by Gateway Pundit, takes the prize for the most blatantly obvious attempt at manipulation. Sure, the guy may have just collapsed from heat exhaustion, but that's not the impression the New York Times series gives you.
UPDATE - Are we wrong about this one? Maybe.
UPDATE, AGAIN - Seems the NY Times chose a different caption than NPR, one that made it sound as though the 'victim' was of the airstrikes and not someone injured in the rescue effort. Go figure.
Reuters, on their website, has a handbook in which the company details its guiding principles. From the introduction:
Beyond the obvious, such as the cardinal sin of plagiarism, the dishonesty of fabrication or the immorality of bribe-taking, journalism is a profession that has to be governed by ethical guiding principles rather than by rigid rules. The former liberate, and lead to better journalism. The latter constrain, and restrict our ability to operate.As a former journalist, I agree completely with this statement. In order to be a good journalist, one must be willing to comply with ethical principles on your own. Journalism is often a solitary exercise and rules would be almost impossible to enforce if someone is in the field alone.
Ethics are more self-directed, and for that reason they are limited by the willingness of a person to live by a particular standard even when there is no one around to act as a check on wrong impulses. The media's problem is not specifically bias - it's the willingness of those in the media to subordinate the ethics of their profession to their individual opinions.
The short-term benefits of allowing one's biases to affect your behavior on the job is evident - your viewpoints are broadcast around the world and the story is told your way.
What we've seen over the past few days is the long-term impact of such self-indulgence. And unless journalism can find a way to police the behavior of reporters, photographers and editors - or at least make them realize the harmful effects of unethical behavior on the profession - it will continue to see scandals like this and will keep losing the trust of its consumers.
Posted by slublog at August 9, 2006 12:00 AM
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Comments
If only Reuters would use the UNBIASED and INDEPENDENT photographers who can wander safely around the Hezbollah fighters.
You know, those brave journalist types who aren't afraid of casting Hezbollah in an unfavorable light, just because they're a bunch of cold, murdering, bastards who would strap a bomb to their own child's back.
I'm surprised Hezbollah hasn't co-opted the whole photography and local reporting thing exclusively for their own, approved photographers.
Posted by: Steve O at August 8, 2006 11:02 PM
testing
Posted by: Lesly at August 9, 2006 10:22 AM
testing
Were you having problems with the comments? If so, let me know and I'll see if there's something going on.
Posted by: Slublog at August 9, 2006 10:28 AM
Any journalist embedded within Hezbollah that wasn't afraid to cast them in a bad light wouldn't be brave, he'd be stupid. He'd have to take his incriminating evidence on the sly, and then once he got out and released it neither he nor, crucially, anyone else from his agency and/or the agency that buys his pictures would be able to embed again.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at August 9, 2006 10:46 AM