Authority on Photojournalism: Reform or Abyss

Editor & Publisher, leading trade daily, publishes today a column about “Photojournalism in Crisis” by David D. Perlmutter, an authority on the subject, which calls for the kind of investigation and reforms that I and many others in the blogosphere have demanded. Similar demands have not been prominent among MSM coverage of the staged and doctored photos of the Israel-Hezbollah war, or for that matter the terrorism from Hamas and associates in Gaza.

As Perlmutter points out:

In each case, these bloggers have engaged in the kind of probing, contextual, fact-based (if occasionally speculative) media criticism I have always asked of my students. And the results have been devastating…

Perlmutter is, according to his E&P bio:

Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies & Research at the University of Kansas¿s School of Journalism & Mass Communications. He is author of "Visions of War, Photojournalism and Foreign Policy," and a book of documentary photography, Policing the Media."

Perlmutter points out the two paths that media organizations may take, and the stakes:

News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don’t delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.

The stakes are high. Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them.

This isn’t just a problem of photojournalism, or of the Middle East. It extends to other geographies of crucial concern to Americans, and extends to the very hires by media organizations, and not only of suspect stringers.

The latest example, Reuters’ Havana correspondent is formerly Havana-based correspondent of the CPUSA People’s Daily World, and a harsh critic of US policy.

Regardless of excuses or evasions, our major media organizations have demonstrated over and over again, too frequently for mistake, the willingness to accept sources and to hire those whose behavior and reporting contradicts every standard these media organizations hypocritically purport as their policies.

Our major media organizations must reform their practices or, as Perlmutter says, not “if its practitioners and owners are determined to jump into the abyss.”