I think manipulation of photographs in the press is a dangerous road to go down. The press should be providing unadulterated news to the national population, informing them of what is happening in the world and helping to educate them about the world around them.

Removing limbs and bits of people from pictures might come from some moral ethic that says people should be or need to be protected from such violent images. But that's not the place of the newspapers, or even the government, to decide. We live in a very violent world, and people just have to get used to it.

International terrorism, war, even car accidents. They all kill people, and none of them are going to go away in the forseeable future. Hiding people from the realities of existence doesn't help them, it makes them naive, and results in a much bigger shock when they do experience it.

I think the papers/media in general, should either show the pictures in their original form or not show them at all. Ignoring why they did it, once they start editing images, it would be very easy to start editing other things, like stories, quotes and whole articles (New York Times anyone?).

So as I said, print them in their original form or don't bother at all.

Personally I wouldn't want to have been looking at a severed limb whilst I read my paper over my breakfast table...however I can understand Maffs point of view totaly, I think I will sit on the fence on this one.

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by Maffrew
The press should be providing unadulterated news to the national population

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Even supposing there is such a thing as unadulterated news, the press don't and never have provided it. More to the point, I don't think it's what the public want them to provide. You want to see exactly what's happening in Madrid? Go there. Otherwise you'll always be relying on the discretion of photographers and journalists to present the news in what they think is the most appropriate fashion.

Regarding touching up photographs, I think it's ridiculous to suggest that it should never be done. Though I haven't seen the photograph in question, I fail to understand how a change of this nature is substantially different than if the photographer had spotted the offending image and reframed his shot so that it wouldn't appear in the photograph, or if the editor had simply cropped it from the edge of the picture. There is a line of course - doctoring an image to alter its meaning I would regard as unacceptable, although even there the picture conveys what the photographer wants it to, not necessarily what actually happened - reporting is always subjective to a greater or lesser degree and the notion that the camera never lies is and always has been complete nonsense.

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by In a State of Dan
Even supposing there is such a thing as unadulterated news, the press don't and never have provided it.

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That's why i said should provide it. News that's not tainted by bias is a pipedream, one that will never be achieved, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be something we strive for.

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by In a State of Dan
You want to see exactly what's happening in Madrid? Go there. Otherwise you'll always be relying on the discretion of photographers and journalists to present the news in what they think is the most appropriate fashion.

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I shouldn't have to go there though. News services should be telling and showing us what is happening in the world, giving us a view into what we can't see normally, so that we can piece together our view of the world and operate from there.

This isn't what happens. What happens is the news services show us what they, or the government, want us to see, so that our world-view is the world-view that suits their interests (or makes us buy papers). That is what happens. But I don't think it's what should happen. I don't think it is too idealistic to want news that isn't changed to meet some office's view. I'll never get that, but it doesn't stop me wanting it.


(Edited by Maffrew 12/03/2004 16:58)

I suppose the feeling from the photo desk was "Well the copy tells you how many people have been killed and injured, and the train looks as blown up as it was, so maybe we can lose the human body parts that may cause children to throw up in newsagents"

I remember back in the days of yore when newspapers and TV news never ever showed dead bodies and baulked at showing blood.

As long as the reportage itself is accurate, I don't think the images need to be that graphic. Unlike television news, which can alter it's coverage post-watershed, newspapers are a medium available to everyone and rarely come with a "you may some images disturbing" warning beforehand. You don't need to actually *see* the bits to understand that a whole bunch of people got blow apart

If a photograph needs to be edited then it should be, but in such a way that it is obvious what's happened -- eg a solid black block, rather than carefully greying out a detached limb; if this can't be done for some reason then another photograph, where such editing is possible or not required, should be used.

Bowdlerising photographs is inexcusable. Whatever next; knocking a digit off the death toll?

My 7yr old occasionally picks up the newspaper to read & I wouldn't like him to see graphic images. Yes, he understands what happened and people got blown up but he doesn't need to actually see it.

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by Byron
Bowdlerising photographs is inexcusable. Whatever next; knocking a digit off the death toll?

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Good grief, those are two very different situations. A newspaper article can contain reference to severed limbs (and often do). You don't need to show the actual image.

Newspapers are for all and, therefore, there is every excuse to edit imagery that may upset some people.

After all, I'm sure if you want to see the 'full picture' as it were, you could probably find unedited pictures on the net if you looked hard enough.

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by Whistler
After all, I'm sure if you want to see the 'full picture' as it were, you could probably find unedited pictures on the net if you looked hard enough.

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Goes to look.......

I can see both points of view. But watching the news coverage on SKY yesterday where they showed corpses where they lay (one poor gentleman face down on the railway track for instance) and that sickened me. The incident itself was horrible, just horrible but to show the televised pictures of corpses too was just...too much.

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by Byron
Bowdlerising photographs is inexcusable. Whatever next; knocking a digit off the death toll?

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Got to disagree here, the decision to do this was in no way any different from a decision to use one photo rather than another for identical reasons.

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by Whistler
You don't need to show the actual image.

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Yes, you do. An image may not be worth a thousand words, but they tell you things words cannot. No words could hope to describe the scorched Iraqi body from the first Gulf War and neither should they be expected to. People's worldview is vicarious, seen through a photographer's eyes. Sanitise the images and you sanitise the world.

But this is not the matter at hand. Presenting news inherently selective, and there will always be omissions. The issue is that newspapers deliberately doctored an image. They lied. There are, relatively speaking, many palatable photographs of these atrocities available, but they chose to bowdlerise an unpalatable one for artistic effect. That is not reporting the news, it's creating the news, and it's a line that should never be crossed.

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by Avenger
(quotes)

Got to disagree here, the decision to do this was in no way any different from a decision to use one photo rather than another for identical reasons.

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There is a world of difference between omiting part of reality and deliberately presenting a false reality.

I think that's a little strong actually. "A false reality" makes it sounds like an image was radically altered to entirely change the mood. As it was the photo editors seem to have taken a picture of the train that they thought best conveyed the scene and made a very small change in the interests of good taste and respect for the dead. If it was part of a friend or relative of mine, I wouldn't want it splashed across newspapers worldwide.

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by Byron
(quotes)
Yes, you do. An image may not be worth a thousand words, but they tell you things words cannot. No words could hope to describe the scorched Iraqi body from the first Gulf War and neither should they be expected to. People's worldview is vicarious, seen through a photographer's eyes. Sanitise the images and you sanitise the world.

But this is not the matter at hand. Presenting news inherently selective, and there will always be omissions. The issue is that newspapers deliberately doctored an image. They lied. There are, relatively speaking, many palatable photographs of these atrocities available, but they chose to bowdlerise an unpalatable one for artistic effect. That is not reporting the news, it's creating the news, and it's a line that should never be crossed.

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Byron, stop thinking like a politics student at uni for one moment and stop to smell the coffee As has been said before in this thread, children and other people of a certain disposition read newspapers. They may want to be informed of world events, but they don't necessarily want to see, or are ready for, the 'gory details'.

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by Whistler
As has been said before in this thread, children and other people of a certain disposition read newspapers. They may want to be informed of world events, but they don't necessarily want to see, or are ready for, the 'gory details'.

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Hear hear!

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by Byron
(quotes)
There is a world of difference between omiting part of reality and deliberately presenting a false reality.

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Yes maybe there is but, as in this case the editor has clearly omitted part of reality (just as if another similar photo had been available with no body parts and had been used in preference for the same reason) rather than created a false reality, I'm not really sure what your point is.

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by Whistler
(quotes)

Byron, stop thinking like a politics student at uni for one moment and stop to smell the coffee As has been said before in this thread, children and other people of a certain disposition read newspapers. They may want to be informed of world events, but they don't necessarily want to see, or are ready for, the 'gory details'.

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*Hands Whist a cup of strong black, cos he clearly had trouble reading my post*

My problem here isn't that the newspapers censored the photo, but that they decieved their readers in doing so.