It is ethical to alter press photography but it depends a lot on what exactly is done to them. Anything majors such as cropping people out or adding people in should be looked at as crossing the line. Basically anything that could persuade the thoughts of the viewer to think differently from what the original photo would portray is something that has gone too far. Altering photos that will be shown to the public defeats the purpose of photojournalism. It should be news in its truest form, as said in the Poynter Online article about photo manipulation “Photography has come to be trusted as a virtual record of an event. We must never betray that trust”.

One example of why press photos shouldn’t be edited is the case of this photo taken at the 14th Chinese Communist Party in 1992. The original photo (the top) depicts paramount leader and reformer Deng Xiaoping shaking hands with Hu Jintao. The photo was altered from the original in two ways: cutting out the people in the back, and emphasizing the two men all in the effort to crop out a rival that was in the background. By doing this the press was able to sway the way Chinese viewers would perceive the picture. Through this photo the photographer displayd a bia political view

China has been known in the past to have strict rules on what the public is able to be exposed to. The communist ways of their government puts restrictions on what the public sees and thinks, thus making them a prime example of how the alteration of a press photo can change your perspective.

In some cases photo manipulation is not always a bad thing. Press photographs should only be edited to get rid of minor defects such as blurriness, red eye, brightness, focus, sharpness and depending on the photo the hue and/or saturation of colour.

The photo on the right depicts the chaos in the Lebanon War, the smoke in the picture has been altered to look more full and bellowing much high than the original. I don’t think this would change what people think or the main idea of the picture so this would be an example of an acceptable change to a press photo.

Sources

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=46964

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FI08Ad02.html

http://listverse.com/2007/10/19/top-15-manipulated-photographs/