Category Archive

I first started reading about photojournalism ethics when I was doing my thesis, and despite thesis burnout I’ve maintained an interest because how we choose to believe in pictures is just so darn fascinating.

Digital manipulation and “Photoshop” as a verb are recent innovations, but the concept has been around as long as we’ve had photography. (That’s why some of the most confusing Photoshop tools to young digital-age users are the ones like dodge and burn that are based on old darkroom techniques.) There are two main ways to make a photo lie: 1) Change the photo after its been taken or 2) say it shows something other than what it actually shows.

Example from both angles have been in the news recently, so here’s a roundup of good stuff:

• Errol Morris (he’s awesome) on the purpose of Iran’s missile manipulation, also including vintage Soviet comrade erasure photos. Back story. Morris’ awesome NYT blog. His original post that got me hooked.
• Poynter’s Kenny Irby interviews the NYT picture editor about how they chose to run a photo of a hurt child from Zimbabwe that ended up being mispresented. The child has club feet, but his mother lied with a more poignant account, depserate to get her son care. Original correction.
• Finally, this one isn’t about lies. It’s about repercussions of the truth, and basically what my thesis was about. Warren Zinn writes about wondering whether the picture he took of Army medic Joseph Dwyer at the beginning of the Iraq War contributed to Dwyer’s PTSD-related suicide.

Whenever you have late books or recalled books or whatever, WSU Libraries sends you a colorful notice. I kept most of these around this year as if to remind me to do something about it, and Friday I finally threw them all away. I ripped them up out of habit whenever throwing away personal information, and it made a darling little pile.

I won $100 from the university for this writing award, and they took out the amount for my library fines. I picked up the $9 check on Friday. For how much I use the library and how badly it’s underfunded, I consider it money well spent.

I woke up early, I presented, I passed. The end.

They said I had some “technical” things they would have liked changed, but not enough to actually make me change them. And that I had good “voice” in my writing, which is nice.

While I wait impatiently for the future, I have to admit old technology worked pretty well for my thesis. Almost all my sources were books and articles in books, and I marked parts I wanted with little sticky strips. I’m just cheap enough that I cut Post-it notes into pieces so I don’t waste so many. This is the pile I pulled out of books before I brought them back to the library today.

The neon green ones are the oldest, from like October, followed by the boring yellow ones from the newsroom. I started using the purple ones in late January or February. I had a few random bright yellow ones that in a book I had to return a few weeks ago, which is only interesting to know because they were the same that Jacob has on his window (because I took them from him).

OK, it’s turned in to the Honors College. You can see the final thing here, minus a few pages like adviser approval and research board approval that aren’t in the PDF.

If you find any typos, errors, etc., don’t tell me. Thanks to everyone who edited, gave feedback, listened to me go on and on about depressing topics, or otherwise put up with me during this recent stretch of busyness and stress.

After two straight years, last night was my final evening as an editor in the Evergreen newsroom. It was a good night, putting to use everything I’ve learned here: I wrote two last-minute briefs, one staff report, complained about a wordy article, delegated work for an amibitious project I didn’t have time to finish, gave Brian a hug, coordinated art and layout, and finished a front-page feature at 50 inches – 20 more than expected – right at deadline.

I did, however, resist snapping at Christina even though she was annoyed with me all night. So that was atypical. I’ll attribute that to being well-fed.

Also I had my senior column done ahead of time.

And so today, when I woke up with Evergreen morning terrors, I told myself to cut it out. It’s over. I’m not sad – yet. I may not be. I’ve never really been sad about leaving high school or the track team or anything. I mourn minutes from the middle instead.

So today, finished with the newspaper, I am … sitting at my desk in the newsroom. Yep, time to finish up the thesis for good.

… my thesis is written. I finished it yesterday and expect at least a few drastic changes. You should read it and give me your ideas. Tell me what works and what doesn’t. Christina already gave me a few good arrangement ideas I’m going to play around with, and some places that aren’t clear.

It’s not totally finished. I need to format the citations, fill in a few names and dates, and add in exhibits and table of contents and things. And I know there’s a major grammatical error in the headline, blah blah, I’m not going to make a new PDF every time I find a typo.

Leave comments here if you like, but an e-mail or call would probably be better. And I would really appreciate the feedback.

Nick has been really bored recently, but I’m not envious. It sounds nice at first, but it’s like walking home freezing in the middle of winter and thinking how those really, really hot summer days would be pretty nice. And then you remember sweating all the time and sunburns and how it’s not really that nice at all. Neither extreme is fun, and I’ve always preferred to be too cold than too hot anyway.

Today I decided work and stress should follow an ice-cube tray model. A certain amount of work gets poured onto each person, but it spills over to other people before anyone gets over-filled. I’ve been right up to the brim and relying on surface tension for like the past month. It’s just stupid and inefficient to have some people completely overworked and while other people have nothing to do.

It would be like communism, I guess, but only with the smart people you like and trust to do work well. Like a responsibility commune.

It was 2 a.m. and I was going to post these pictures of late-night thesis writing when Christina called. She said Tyler said the scanner was going crazy with several fires on campus and he could smell smoke. So I put my contacts back in, dressed appropriately for running, and grabbed the extraneous heavy stuff out of my reporting bag. Then I ran to campus, it’s probably a little more than a mile to the Stephenson Complex, which turned out to be the only site of any concern. All the residents were outside, tired and cold, and we stood around for a while to see what was going on. It was nothing too serious, though a rumor that the alarms weren’t working may turn out to be something.

I should have said, “Good, I’m glad you and Tyler are handling it,” and then kept working on my thesis. But it could have been exciting if there really were multiple fires on campus, especially since earlier I’d been thinking about the string of arson fires that capped off my all-nighter last fall.

So now it’s 3 a.m.

UPDATE: Here’s the fires story they put together.

From Susan Sontag’s “On Photography”:

“Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.”

Another part was about how someone who is not involved, an outsider, can only be fascinated or bored. I think the strange thing a lot of us share, which I often call a certain type of paranoia, is the inability to be comfortable with no camera or notebook. I think nothing terrifies me more than the possibility of boredom and forgetting.

Last week I took a few pictures of things that caught my attention in LIFE magazines when I was looking through at WWII war photo essays. Today I took a break from the hectic pace and made a little picture out of that stuff. Here also is what the original looked like and what the woman looked like before I egotistically changed her coloring to match myself. Before she looked too much like if Jacob were a woman in the 1940s.

I had the quote from Lee Miller in my notes. She also said, to explain why she’d married an Egyptian man and moved there and then left him to photograph the war in Europe, “I want the Utopian combination of security and freedom, and emotionally I need to be completely absorbed in some work or man I love.”

My thesis presentation will be 8 a.m. May 5, which is the Monday after commencement. That way my parents can be there before flying home after the graduation weekend. I was already presenting late and I knew they would appreciate being there, so today I asked the Honors College and my adviser and everyone was tremendously nice and accommodating.

So that’s when it will be. Everyone is invited, though I imagine the time of day will be a strong deterrent.

It would have been so easy to not include the photographers. That’s what I thought was neat about these segments (the prison camp liberation above, and this handshaking) from the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. I know it’s been a while since I was there, but writing up the twined history of photojournalism and war for my thesis reminded me of it.

In case you were wondering, the camera is probably mean to be a Graflex Speed Graphic.

Yesterday I worked on my thesis for most of the day (with a break for the WSUPD chief candidate forum) until about 2 a.m. Today I woke up around 8:30 a.m. and worked on it all day (with a break to write the WSUPD chief candidate story, and a nice dinner) and am now at Zoe Coffeehouse for a change of scenery. The plan is to be done by tomorrow night. Just so you know. Here’s a random quote that I may use:

“Modern air travel made it possible for me to be in Sarajevo taking photographs in a front line trench and city morgue in the morning and by evening be back in London drinking a glass of wine with friends. That is a long way for the mind to travel.”

Every so often the discussion comes up about the best ending to a novel. I’ve long been a supporter of “Brave New World” and “The Sun Also Rises,” and usually if I’m in good company “The Grapes of Wrath” gets mentioned.

I’ve never quite agreed with that one, and this is probably why. The photographer Horace Bristol was inspired by Dorothea Lange photos to create a story for LIFE magazine about the migrant farmworkers of the Great Depression. He wanted John Steinbeck to write the text, and they set off together after Steinbeck initially agreed. Bristol photographed the people (if you have a copy of the book with a man’s photo on the cover, it’s a Bristol shot) and Steinbeck talked to them. Steinbeck was already working on a related novel and decided not to go ahead with the LIFE story, but when the book finally came out Bristol was eager to read it.

“He both admired the novel and recognized it as a masterpiece of American literature, but privately was troubled by several passages that he believed inappropriately sensationalized the lives of the men and women he and Steinbeck had interviewed and photographed. The novel’s final scene … especially troubled Bristol. He had photographed the woman Steinbeck had based the character on, but she was nursing an infant … The literary license taken by the novelist seemed to Bristol to be a deliberate attempt to shock and titillate readers.”

That’s from a book about Bristol I have for my thesis, and I’m not going to guarantee they’re presenting things with 100 percent accuracy, either, because I don’t know. But it’s enough to make me think and question, and maybe feeds into what always made me uncomfortable about the ending.

Still, it’s a good enough ending that I removed the spoilers as well as I could from the excerpt.

So my thesis is going well, though the deadline is looming. But I work well to deadlines generally, though I’m not as good with deadlines measured in minutes as a lot of journalists are. I like mine measured in days, specifically less than a week. I also work best from about 6 to 11 a.m. generally, though I’ve also had great early-evening productivity and the late-night 2 a.m. kind.

My biggest barrier right now is that I need a good amount of single-mindedness to really be productive, and my mind has been split to a half-dozen places recently. I also work better if I’m sipping something, like tea or water.

Under what conditions to you work best?

I’ve been dealing with a lot of traumatic photographs recently because of my thesis. That is not the kind of horror I am talking about at all here. This is from last week when I was sending photos and quotes to the paper near Winthrop, and attaching them to the e-mail. One of the people I talked to was Monique, since I saw her out near the mall with her Coug gear, and I accidentally turned her picture to CMYK before uploading it to the e-mail. This produced terrifying results that sent me and Brian into fits of horrified giggles. It’s not so bad when I’m looking at it today, but still worth sharing. Look at it.

This is worth reading. Here’s an excerpt I’m keeping as an example for my thesis:

“Whatever war is, it is a deeply personal experience for those who live in it. I am a photographer and have captured thousands of images of Iraq and the war there since that day. But when I stop reading about the war, I guess I get that faraway look I always saw, as I grew up, in the eyes of countless veterans and civilians who lived through war, including my mother. I don’t wonder what they see anymore.
“I see images. Not the images I took. I see the images and feel the sensations I keep mentally when I am without the help of a lens.”

Note: This is the text from the print copy of the newspaper. A phrase is added in the online version; I’m not sure whether it was cut out for space in print or added for clarity online. From an editorial standpoint I actually prefer the print version.

The combination of covering cops this semester and reading “All the President’s Men” completely cured me of phone dread. Which is good, because there was only a short window for end-of-break moping before the news locked us all in again.

Yesterday I spent a frustrating amount of time trying to track down information on graffiti around campus during break. In the end I just tried to minimize holes and recommended it go on page 3, and I’m not even going to link it here. Still, it felt like hard news.

Today we finally got the finding letter from Student Conduct regarding a fraternity that lost recognition. It has all kind of great details about the alleged infractions, but it means another day of trying to get busy people on the phone with Christina only to have them tell us they don’t know anything.

Still, it’s kind of fun. The problem is I don’t have time to be a good journalist right now. I have a thesis and graduating to do, among other things like attending meetings for Brian and trying to find a job. There are so many things I want to do, and too many things that must be done whether I want to or not.

This is a little late, but it’s still worth extra credit and I still wanted to mention this one thought.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post, author of “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” came to WSU last Friday to give a talk about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially about relations with Pakistan. Earlier in the day, he met for an hour with communication students to answer questions, and he spoke about his experiences covering Iraq in the early days of the war when no one expected it to go on very long. He also talked about what it’s like to be covering this campaign season.

At one point he was talking about trying to get through Baghdad the day Saddam fell, and how he and a fellow journalist were stopped at a checkpost. They convinced the marine on duty not only to let them pass, but to radio ahead and tell the other checkpoint guards to let them move freely.

I’ve been reading a lot about journalists in war zones, and this proves things haven’t changed that much at all since WWII. That is, the main skill in covering wars is tricking your way into places journalists aren’t supposed to be. And not dying.

I was, yes, looking at my own blog this morning when I noticed the little pop-up link window for Christina’s Special K diet gave an interesting perspective. That’s on the left, with the website that actually shows up from the link on the right. Sometimes the internet is smarter than I like to think.

As for me, Day 2 gave me license to be a bit snippy at the other editors, since I am quite hungry. My heart rate is higher than usual, but that may have more to do with this Spokesman-Review article that inexplicably got full-front treatment. I’ve been following those same issues and numbers, and there will be a large story in the Evergreen next week addressing similar questions of whether violence is rising on College Hill.

Which makes my life that much more complicated this week. I’m also writing stories for Thursday and Friday, taking two exams, and trying to finish a number of smaller tasks. There’s also the looming citadel that is my thesis.

In a remarkably quick response from the university, I got the go-ahead for my thesis interviews. This isn’t the main part of my research, just a hope that I might get interesting insight. Here are the PDF versions of the cover letter and questions, which are meant to be discussion guidelines more than a rigid interrogation.

I’m seeking any media professionals who have been involved with crisis photography as a journalist, editor or other relevant role. I’m sending the information out with a description of my project more casual than the required cover letter, and hopefully I’ll get some responses. If you know of anyone who might be good for this, let me know or just pass on the information.

Today nationally acclaimed author Jess Walter visited campus and gave a talk for journalism students and Evergreen people about the path he’s taken as a writer. He was insightful and engaging, a great storyteller. As someone who at least aspires to writing longer journalism, and maybe fiction, his experiences were very interesting. Some highlights:

• Newspapers frustrated him because the world doesn’t fit into 12 inches of simple black-and-white. It took him years to earn the trust to write the long narratives and expansive stories that go beyond the simple events.

“I am really interested in those things that don’t fit in the parameters of a newspaper.”

• The biggest barrier for journalists who want to write books is that it requires “glacial patience.”

• What good reporting and good writing both require is not aggressiveness, but curiosity.

“I was kind of a magpie. I was constantly looking for interesting details.”

• On a similar theme, Walter fielded a number of questions about the invasive role of journalists.

“You have to find a way to not be a vulture. You have to find a way to live with yourself.”

“I think I made more ethical mistakes out of fear than aggression.”

“When people said they didn’t want to talk to me I said ‘OK.’ But I was stunned with how many people wanted to talk to me.”

He set the tone for this at the beginning, saying he never liked that intrusiveness of working as a reporter. This reminded me of a Didion-like shyness (which is not really a shyness in the traditional sense at all). It did not surprise me, then, when I asked him afterward which writers have influenced him most and he mentioned Didion. We talked about that for a bit.

The fundamental question – Is journalism ethical? – has rattled around in my conscience ever since the first summer I thought to call myself a journalist. It’s the only thing in my life to keep me up at night and then it comes to me in nightmares, and it’s what got me into this thesis in the first place. These are the three pieces I think of most:

“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.”

Janet Malcolm
“The Journalist and the Murderer”

“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: Writers are always selling somebody out.”

Joan Didion
“Slouching Towards Bethlehem”

“An old woman was walking down the road when she saw a gang of thugs beating a poisonous snake. She rescued the snake and carried it back to her home, where she nursed it back to health. They became friends and lived together for many months. One day they were going into town, and the old woman picked him up and the snake bit her. Repeatedly. “O God,” she screamed, “I am dying! Why? I was your friend. I saved your life! I trusted you! Why did you bite me?”
The snake looked up at her and said, “Lady, you knew I was a snake when you first picked me up.”

Hunter S. Thompson
“Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie”

And this is the face Christina made last weekend when we thought the only thing wrong with her car was a little snow covering. We have since discovered the front door was left slightly ajar through two feet of snowfall, the battery died and could not be easily jumpstarted, and there is mold growing on the back seat. Gross.

This is the vehicle Christina and I will be theoretically using to get over to the other side of the state this weekend. The plan includes emus, ocean, Irish cream and an exchange of hostage books.

It also means I won’t be getting much work done on my thesis in the next few days. This is probably bad, but I’m not much of a worrier.

I’m not the slightest bit embarrassed to be working on my thesis this Friday evening, which is an indication that I haven’t been working on it as diligently as I should. Also I know no one reads this. Also I’m not by myself, so it’s not that bad.

Anyway, here’s a bit from a book aptly called “Press Photography: Reporting with a Camera” that sums up what I’m looking at with this whole project:

“But the favorable court decisions [for press freedom] have not entirely relieved the minds of photographers and editors, for there still remains the moral question involved. One newsman put the question this way: ‘What business has a photographer to make a living by treating human tragedy as a natural resource?’”

Here’s another quote, from a different book, from Dorothea Lange regarding her famous Great Depression photograph “Migrant Mother”:

“There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that pictures might help her, and so she helped me.”

The other project I have this semester is my Honors thesis, regarding the conflict of loyalties in crisis photography. Maybe I’ll start posting about that, too.

In the meantime, the New York Times has a good feature about war photographer Robert Capa, who did for photojournalism what Hemingway did for writing.

There’s no point in me getting too giddy about this, at least here, but the article is about several cases of long-lost negatives from the Spanish Civil War – which is, as some of my friends know, my second-favorite civil war. The cases were found, and the negatives they’ve examined so far include images of Hemingway and Federico Garcia Lorca, along with photos taken by Gerda Taro and Chim Seymour.

The associated slide show is a nice way of getting the main points of the article.