Birth of the Fake News Photo
Has photojournalism lost its moral compass, or does it even have one to lose?
Please understand, that I’m writing from my own perspective here and I don’t see myself as a self-appointed spokesperson for the industry. The words here are simply my opinion. Take them or leave them as you will.
It’s an important question to ask, and a complicated one to answer. Does this business have a moral compass, and if so, where has it gone?
Unlike Athena, photojournalism did not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. The ethical and proper practice of photojournalism took a good fifty years to become established and there were plenty of mistakes made along the way. Like the Greek gods, our industry’s founders were far from perfect.
For example, you have Gene Smith, whose motto “Let truth be the prejudice”, manipulated his prints in the darkroom to a degree that would make today’s pixel-pusher blush.
You also have Robert Capa, who changed his name with the hope that people would mistake him for the American film director Frank Capra. A shameless self-promoter, Capa would have owned social media if it had existed in his day. He also, most likely, setup many pictures or at the very least, embellished the stories behind them.
