Photojournalism: Shooting the truth - Assignment Example

Photojournalism: Shooting the Truth What’s the role of photo journalism? Photojournalism is a subset of journalism that communicates via images. The role of photo journalism has been questioned for many years and perceived dead by many more. However, with current technology, photojournalism has emerged a very strong communication tool. How interesting would it be to read a newspaper or magazine with no images at all? The role of photojournalism becomes apparent when one stops to ruminate over what it could be to read through a newspaper that is deficient of pictures.

Photojournalists are expected to shoot photos that appeal to the readers. Photojournalism basically provides a summary to the written stories in a newspaper of magazine. Photojournalists use images to give the readers some insight into what an article contains. Photojournalism brings written words in an article in touch with reality making the readers to identify with the stories, which would otherwise appear like fairy tales. Photos have objective quality. When taken properly in unbiased manner, readers or viewers are left to make their own judgments about the truth.

Written article without any picture may be attributed to individual bias of the writer. Photojournalists are expected to uphold public trust as they ply their trade by posting timely, accurate and compelling images for the viewers or readers.2. Are there rules that photojournalists should follow? Why? Why not?Trust is a major distinguish factor of photojournalism from other photography works. In the contemporary world awash with technology, whenever they see a photo, people will always pose the question, is this real?

As such, photojournalist have the task of winning the trust of the public to believe that the pictures they shoot are indeed real and not interfered with in any way. In order to achieve this, photojournalists have some rules to guide them in reporting the truth. These include:No stage manipulation of photos.Precision in presentation of subjects.Photojournalists should shun bias and stereotyping during coverage and ensure complete information. Exhibit selflessness for subjects.Photograph editing should never create erroneous view of subjects.

Photojournalists should not sway the subjects in the photo.Photojournalists should not pay to obtain photographs.No gift acceptance from subjects for them to appear in photos.No intentional interference with other journalists’ works.3. Is the ethics of taking journalistic photos different than the ethics of writing a news story?The ethics needed when taking photojournalistic photos are basically the same with those observed when writing a new story. This is because both story writing and photo reporting are media whose successes revolve around telling the truth.

Journalistic photos should always be complementary to stories, thus they are often guided with similar ethical frameworks. Journalistic photos should be in a position to enable the reader imagine what is happening and to connect the story with the reality in the accompanying journalistic photo.4. What’s the impact of altering press photographs? Should they be edited (at all) in postproduction?Alteration of press photographs is likely to distort the real picture or impression of the subjects in the photo.

Any major alteration of press photographs is likely to mislead the public and violate the principle of truth reporting. This would result into waning public trust. As such, press photographs are not supposed to be edited because this will largely distort the truth, which is the fundamental principle of not only photojournalism, but the entire profession of journalism. However, editing should only be done in cases where the editing does not change the impression of the photo subjects, for instance, varying the quality of the photo would be appropriate.