Dennis Dunleavy

Iwo Jima at Sixty: Memory and the rhetoric of "The Good War"

AP Photo by Joe Rosenthal

Last week a day in photojournalistic infamy slipped across the horizon of my consciousness.

February 23, 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of the raising of the flags(s) on the island of Iwo Jima following one of the most difficult battles of  WWII in the South Pacific.

Recently, Rosenthal's picture was overlaid with a film frame made by Marine cinematographer Sgt. Bill Genaust who was standing next to the celebrated Associated Press photographer at the time. The result of the juxtaposition is a haunting 3-D rendering of the scene that can be viewed Online with a standard pair of 3- D glasses courtesy of the Tampa Tribune's Dimensions of Valor site.

In 1999, I completed a master's thesis on the rhetorical power of images of war. Rosenthal's image was among three pictures analyzed for the study. Today, as I am reminded of the 60th anniversary of this conflict, I look back now on my writing for a sobering and grounding perspective on what this picture means to me.

The image made by Rosenthal on Iwo Jima consolidated the emotional and political consciousness of a nation at a time when it needed a unifying ideological force to continue its involvement in the war. The image has evolved into a visual metaphor for such phrases as "The Good War", "common cause" or "valor under fire." Today, the rhetorical impact of the Iwo Jima image is embedded in our national consciousness. The impact of this image, for me, stands-in place of  the realities of war. The image symbolically transcends the boundaries of time and space to underscore the human costs of the conflict. In the case of Iwo Jima, a battle that took the lives of thousands of Japanese and Americans combatants (Roeder, 1993; Eiler, 1995).

The mythological transcendence of the Iwo image is due in large part to the highly organized machinery of a war propaganda effort that propelled it into the spotlight of public consciousness at the time. Capturing the imagination of millions, the scene was replicated in popular culture: On postage stamps, "Zippo" lighters and even advertisements for  Spam (the meat product). For Marling and Wetenhall (1991), the image was so popular that it was used to sell more than $24 billion in war bonds by its presence in more than 16,000 movie theaters, 15,000 banks, 200,000 factories, 30,000 railroad stations and on 5,000 billboards.

For Lance Bertelsen (1989), Rosenthal's photograph "fulfills our hope that flawed men in horrible circumstances can achieve a perfect figuration of traditional heroism--that Life indeed can surpass Art."

Can one image assert so much power over the moral imagination of a nation?  Movies were made about it, songs were sung over it, and the image lives on in memory to symbolize the deeds of war.

What is seldom remembered about the image is that it appeared against a backdrop of isolationist tendencies following WWI, poor morale in the US labor sector producing war materiel, rising racial tensions, as well as economic stagnation after the depression. Rosenthal's image represented a visual panacea for the war effort -- a pictorial remedy designed to instill hope and patriotism to the nation.

The Iwo Jima image, in my mind, is impacting because it has become a dichotomization between good and evil, right and wrong, hero and coward. Rosenthal's image embodies American idealism by telling and retelling a story of epic proportions.

I do not remember the "Good War" or the tremendous sacrifice made by millions. This war -- "The Good War" was the war of my grandparents and parents. Today, I can only say that I live in the shadow of such dark times and suffering through Rosenthal's visual reportage. 

I come from a generation raised during a time of the so-called  "Dirty Little War" -- the Viet Nam Conflict. The iconic imagery of my youth conjures up a different reality than what was depicted on Iwo Jima. The iconic images of my generation show the consequences of war, such as the street execution of a prisoner and the bombing of a little girl's village. The master metaphors engendered by Rosenthal's image -- metaphors drenched in the societal expectations and obligations of such ideals as valor, liberty, unison. patriotism and sacrifice -- were replaced by the master metaphors of the "Dirty War" and the flat visual rhetoric of "carpet bombings", "body bags", "My Lai", and  "Kent  State."

Unlike the rhetoric of "The Good War" that distillates in the Rosenthal's image, the icons of the "Dirty War" some 25 years later, served as a moral compass for guiding me to comprehend the unpleasant truths about war.  I come from a generation that was taught to question the authenticity of the image as a persuasive determinant summing up the government's war effort.  I was raised and encouraged to question images as simply neutral representations that mirror reality. This, I think, is what the icons of war do for us if we reflect long enough on them. These images remind us of the terrible suffering and sacrifice that washes ashore with the tide of each passing generation. The present generation, with its present war, must now come to terms with its own iconic images. Do the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison or a Marine's tired face come to mind?

Sources and Links

Bertelsen, Lance. "Icons on Iwo." Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 22. Spring 1989.

Brothers, Caroline. War and Photography: A Cultural History. London:Routledge. 1977.

Edwards, Janis and Carol Winkler. "Representative Forms and the Visual Ideograph: The Iwo Jima Image in Editorial Cartoons." Quarterly Journal of Speech. August 1997: 289-310.

Eiler, Dorothea. "Flags on Iwo: The True Picture." Military History. February 1995.

Marling, Karal Ann and John Wetenhall. Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories and the American Hero. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press. 1991.

Roeder, George, Jr. The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War II. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1993.

Possibility Knot Blog

Arthur Herman Blog

Iwo Jima Images

Joe Rosenthal

Fifty Years Later, Iwo Jima Photographer Fights His Own Battle

Photography History

Photography from the Heartwood

(Photo by Karin Higgins)

Karin Higgins, a Master's student at SJSU has been photographing the lives of her sister's triplets since before they arrived in the world. Now, more than two years later, Karin continues to document her two nieces and nephew in a beautiful and meaningful way.

Down with the flu and overwhelmed with work, I was eager to learn more about how the Luci S. Houston Photography Project went on Saturday. I promise to make it next time, promise.

Two photojournalism students, Jason Fithian and Angela Goodman , from San Jose State University participated in the day-long event, which is coordinated by  San Jose Mercury News photojournalist Anne-Marie McReynolds. The project is part of the  the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Heartwood Academy in San Jose and brings together fifth grade students from the surrounding working-class, minority Alum Rock neighborhood. Jason and Angela are highly motivated and very enthusiastic when it comes to photography and helping out.

According to Jason, "The photography aspect of the program is just one of the several 'elective' classes the students can attend, where they can learn what interests them. There are electives such as music, drama, literature, and of course, photography. The kids are so eager to learn."

Basically the students did two activities, reinforcing their vocabulary that was learned earlier. The first activity .... I helped with was the "Do You See What I See?" where a group of students went around with a 'frame' looking for something to document. They would describe to the group what they were seeing, using their terms of: same level, bird's eye, worm's eye, wide shot, medium shot and close up. After they described what they were seeing, they would use their camera and make their photo. We did this a few times. The students were so excited to go out and make photos.

The next session, I switched and went inside to do the next session
with a different group of students called "In the News" where students
would cut out images in the SJ Mercury and paste them on a a large
sheet of butcher paper, again, using their vocabulary. The second
group of students were very eager to participate. It's so cool to see
that there is this connection with the students, how much they
appreciate you around.  It's cute, some students were cutting out
advertisements and comic strips - then you just guide them to look for
a photograph.

The next opportunity for volunteers to participate in the Luci S. Houston Photography Project in on  March 19th.

Visual Rhetoric and the Death of Everything

 
The March 13 cover of Wired Magazine is a good example of using visual rhetoric to explain how older technologies are being "killed off" by newer ones.  The cover shows a bullet smashing through a portable AM/FM radio to illustrate  the widely held notion that iPods and media monopolies are killing radio.

However, Charles C. Mann's article "The Resurrection of Indie Radio" in the March 13 issue of Wired suggests a different point of view:

Noting radio's declining audiences, recurring low-level payola scandals, horrendous public image, and competition for drive-time ears from iPods, satellite broadcasting, and cell phones, pundits have been gleefully pronouncing the medium's last rites. But they may well be wrong. Rather than being on life support, radio in fact is on the verge of its boldest technological change since the introduction of FM stereo in the 1960s. Not only that, it may be on the threshold of another golden age, one which could have almost as powerful an impact as the first. And in the vanguard of this movement, bizarrely enough, are many of the same flaccid, reactionary media giants that put radio in a coma to begin with.

A few weeks ago  I wrote about how, according to the mainstream media, emerging technologies such as the Internet  signify the death of journalism, photojournalism, public relations, television, and telephony, i.e., "everything."

I wrote:

The first thing I would like to suggest about all of this is that emerging technologies signify opportunities for us to reflect upon how communicative processes may or not be changing in the world. In fact, just sitting here publishing to my blog about things I care about may help answer my own questions. Sort of, maybe, whatever.

The danger of all this is that it is so easy to get caught up in the hype of the latest and greatest technology that we forget about the qualitative aspects of communication. Speed is cool. Speed is sexy. Speed sells. I want speed. Give me speed.....

No thanks.

If I don't "get it", will getting more of it, in less time, really help me "get it"?

I think about rituals and habits a lot when I observe how students appear so "plugged" into new technologies in the classroom that they seem to "tune out" to learning and listening. I think about how the laptop computer, wireless internet, text messaging, cellular phones, camera phones, iPods, and instant messaging changes how I communicate with students in the classroom.

Bryan Alexander, co director for the Center of Educational Technology at Middlebury College,
wrote on the Humlab Blog about how my observation "draws our attention to the fairly murderous rhetoric sometimes attached to new media."

This signals a connection to the Internet as horrible, threatening place meme.  It also suggests a link to social Darwinism, with its fetish of competitive violence.
Moreover, the blogger goes on to link this discourse with an uncritical obsession with speed.

Why do we have to perceive something new as the "death" of something older?

I am curious about how human beings use metaphor and language to symbolize the uncertainty of societal and technological change. I was wondering what a conversation would have been like between a  blacksmith and an auto mechanic when the blacksmith had to change a flat tire for the first time. 

In his book Language as a Symbolic Action, Kenneth Burke suggests that in order for words to be reflection of reality they also can be considered a "selection" as well as a "deflection" of this reality. Burke argues:    

Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality (p. 45).

As I understand it, Burke seems to be saying that every time a phrase such as "The End of Radio (As We Know It)" is used to describe a reality, there is also an implicit and explicit process of selection (to point out of something) as well as a process of deflection (to point away from something).

Clearly, language can create a tension in how we make sense of something. The role of the media, at least one role of the media as I see it, is to help us understand issues relevant to our lives.  Using language  to suggest that one from of  technology "kills" another form of technology actually deflects  "reality" away from inevitable change. The rhetoric of death surrounding new and old technologies deflects our attention away from the fact that what we are really afraid of is how this change impacts our lives.  This sort of symbolic language creates, in some way, fear and confusion about emerging technologies. Further, this rhetoric creates a culture of division and alienation between those that are quick to grasp  new ways of doing things against those that are comfortable with past ways of doing things. I would suggest that there is plenty of room for both old and new ways of thinking about technology. The problem with hyped-up mainstream media language is that it has a tendency to be overly simple, dumbed-downed when explaining complex ideas and issues to a general audience. 

We select language to describe and explain something according to the expectations and obligations we feel are at stake in the communication. We use dramatic words and images to persuade others that our point of view is valid, worthy of consideration or truthful. We use language, visual or textual, to draw attention to something. The fact that human beings use language symbolically to communicate, in this instance a rhetoric that associates emerging technologies with death and destruction, comes as a second nature to us. Symbols can communicate higher more abstract ideas beyond the often obscure, mundane, calculating, causal and commonplace language of science used to express fact. Symbolic language extends fact to the realm of emotion, speculation and drama.

Special thanks Bryan Alexander for making me think about this aspect of language more. This is a much needed conversation that we should dedicate ourselves to developing over time.

Technorati Profile

Paul Fusco and Magnum Stories

The Graduate School of Journalism and Fotovision is co-sponsoring a booksigning and lecture by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco this Friday, February 25th at 6:30. There will be a reception followed by a lecture at 7:00 p.m. at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, room 105 

According to the release:

Magnum photographer Paul Fusco has the distinction of having been a part of the Golden Age of documentary photography as a staffer for Look magazine as well as having crossed over into the digital age. He is still producing gutsy, in-depth stories and assignments.

Paul has several books; his newest is RFK Funeral Train. He is also profiled in Magnum Stories, in which 61 of the classic Magnum members discuss their work and have some of their  best photo-essays. (Hearst and Euclid in Berkeley). We are experimenting with this  booksigning. In addition to having RFK Funeral Train for sale, we are sending 20 copies of Magnum Stories to New York to have several of the  photographers in the book sign them and then shipping them back out  here for our booksigning, when Paul and local and legendary Magnum photographer, Wayne Miller will sign them. You can be sure there  won't be many books like these out in the world!!The book signing and lecture is free and open to  the public.

Journalists sources must remain protected

The recent case involving a U.S. appeals court ruling arguing that the First Amendment does not privilege journalists when it comes to revealing confidential sources is deeply troubling.  In writing for the court, Judge David Sentelle opined, "There is no First Amendment privilege protecting the evidence sought." The journalists, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper, a Time Magazine writer, must now either testify before the court or go to jail.

The "evidence sought" refers to finding out who leaked a CIA operative's name to the press. Not only that, the "evident sought" has significant political consequences for the Bush administration.  If the reporters go to jail for refusing to provide "evidence" in this case, a dangerous precedent will be set.

Sending journalists to jail for protecting sources will send a very strong message to the nation at a time when public confidence in Fourth Estate is hitting the skids. A recent survey of high school students revealed that 36% believe the government should approve stories before publishing; 51% believe journalists should be able to publish freely; and 13% have no opinion.

Making journalists reveal sources in this case essentially does the government's dirty work. What does it mean when law enforcement has to rely on journalists to do their job for them? It means that the public's right to know is again being thrown out with the bath water. In order for journalists to work independent of government control they must feel safe to investigate stories free from the threat of being jailed.

An editorial in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday sums this up pretty well. The Monitor argues, "if a reporter can't protect a source so that information can freely flow to the public, then one of democracy's underpinnings - the public's right to know - will erode."

Although reporters may not have an absolute right to protect the identities of their sources, they should be protected from the superheated world of inside the beltway politics. Will investigating stories of national and international importance now become a criminal activity? If the appeals court ruling stands, the answer is yes.

Context and Impact: Explaning two functions of news images

In the world of photojournalism, I argue that there are two kinds of images used to visually illustrate a news story. The two categories I am talking about can be divided in to "context-driven" or "impact-driven" images. The function of these types of images differ in shaping public perception and informing audiences.

The best way to explain these categories is to imagine a local newspaper running a picture of a guy holding up a fish to show how big it was. This image is context-driven because it relies on the picture to provide evidence that something happened, or in this case that the fish was as big as the person said it was.

Now, imagine a newspaper running a picture of the guy's face the moment this fish strikes the line to suggest surprise, fear, delight, hope. This image would be, in my opinion, "impact-driven." There is a world of difference between the two types of pictures. Impact-driven images are edifying, which means that they add something to the story being told. Context-driven images, although important, function as a more "matter-of-fact" statement or accounting of an occurrence.  Impact images have context plus immediacy, intensity and many times a sense of intimacy to them. This, I think, should be the objective of good photojournalism -- to take images beyond providing a context or evidence of an occurrence.

Earlier, I posted these descriptions of context and impact.

Context

Contextually driven images are news pictures that provide a visual reference for the reader. These pictures establish veracity about an event that is so-called "news worthy." These pictures are evidence that something has occurred. Pictures of talking heads, grip and grins, the ubiquitous podium shot, dignitaries seated uncomfortably at a table looking like they wish the photographers would leave the room, the prime minister and a visiting first lady, whatever. Context images illustrate and provide visual cues for the reader. They can be boring, poorly composed, but they carry meaning because they are the image of record and report, “we were there for you—our loyal reader.”

Impact

Impact-driven images are eye stoppers. These pictures can be aesthetically pleasing, shocking, dramatic, intimate, intense, immediate, informative, and even funny. Impact-driven images draw us in and hold our attention. They also have a context, which is important. Okay, which of the two pictures has more impact? Little girl, of course. There was only one option left.

Many, many, or dare I say most newspapers use a formula for news page design and there is nothing wrong with this. Formulas have a purpose in news design, but they are still formulas.

If you look at The New York Times, for example, you will see that the designers and editors are very careful in selecting the dominant images for the page. Much of the time, the images selected will be both context and impact driven. In other words, they might position an important event above the fold as a context image and then a secondary image that has impact below the fold.

There is a function to the form of what we call “news” and it is mediated for us through words and pictures every day. Images help reinforce a worldview, class status, the haves and the have nots. Images on the front page of a newspaper take on even greater significance because they not only provide a context for the world we live in, but they often do it with impact.

The "I"s have it in Photojournalism

Over the past few years, it has become increasingly evident to me that  effective visual communication is often determined by and dependent upon the speed and comprehension in which a message is processed and understood by the audience.  This may seem, on the surface, very obvious to many, but I also believe that there are levels of complexity to this process that are overlooked by students and professionals. I have been working with a model that has evolved from combining design principles and picture editing criterion. We know that imagery appeals to the  emotional and intellectual interests of the viewer. On an intellectual level, pictures and designs with a strongly defined visual hierarchy tend to be more immediate and persausive.  Although each individual has their own tolerance for ambiguity, a strongly defined hierarch means that the viewer does not have to guess what the central focus of the image is. Immediacy is a visual storytelling attribute that attracts and holds a viewer's interest in some way.

Joe Elbert, Assisting Managing Editor for Photography at the Washington Post suggests that pictures can  fall into several distinct categories including images that are informational, graphically appealing, emotionally appealing and intimate.  For more on Joe Elbert  here is a link to a December 2004 interview.

The big question in teaching these ideas, however, is in how to get students to think about making pictures that go beyond the informational and graphically appealing levels to images that have visual impact, intensity and intimacy.  I believe that there is a continuum between immediacy, intensity and intimacy in photojournalism.

A model for effective visual communication
by Dennis Dunleavy (2005).

At the same time, photography is all about communication and relationships:

The best photojournalism is about an individual's  relationship to light, people, places, self, technology, institutions, environment, and culture.  In an image that has immediacy ( a strong visual hierarchy with a relatively low tolerance for ambiguity), the viewer's encounter with the frame become more intense.  Two of my most favorite photographers Larry Burrows and Eliott Erwitt often have this sense of immediacy and intensity in their work.

I see Immediacy as the starting point of visual design and through it a reader can become emotionally connected to what they are seeing through intensity and intimacy.  It's fun to think about making pictures this way and yet another thing all together in actually doing it.

Bloggers: The shadowy faceless army challenging the "matter-of-fact" realism of the mainstream

Today's San Jose Mercury News has a story about "Bloggers' Internet obsession."

What makes blogging any different than having a pet rock?

I have been looking over James Carey's treatise Communication as Culture this morning and there were several things that seemed to make sense about reality, blogging and communication.

Carey suggests, "Reality is not given....reality is brought into existence, is produced, by communication--by, in short, the construction, apprehension, and utilization of symbolic forms" (p. 25).

How we communicate using blogging or any other medium is still communication -- it is still about constructing a reality for each other through symbolic forms.  For example, yesterday I learned about, and made light of, the terms geek and nerd. I also learned that by blogging or communicating my ideas I exposed myself to the opinions of others -- on and off line. Later, in class, we discussed the meaning of these terms.

Ultimately, the point of discourse, through blogging or personal interaction, comes down to relationships and the transparency of those relationship.  Carey makes a reference to Marshall McLuhan's observation about how a fish is unaware of the water in which it lives in. I think we can say the same thing for the ways in which we communicate.

One of the chief differences between the blogosphere and the mainstream media is in the speed in which our perception of the external world, i.e., "reality" is mediated. The matter-of-fact realism that is perpetuated by the myth of an objective mainstream media has been now challenged by the  shadowy  presence of a faceless army of bloggers. Blogging, then, may signify a reordering of the matter-of-fact realism we have become habituated to through the mainstream media. This is an important point, and worthy of consideration in the sense that human communication, no matter what form it takes is problematic.

Hey dude, what exactly is a "GEEK"?

I keep hearing this echo in my head...GEEK...GEEK...

Gollum...Gollum (with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien)

What exactly in the name of "Gates"  is a "Geek" anyway?

As my 5-year-old is fond of saying, "Papa, I have no clue."

Although I may not be able to tell you the origins of the word,  I still think I know a geek when I see one, or in many cases, when I read one.

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, A "geek" is  a "carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake."

I can almost picture it now. Look out "Fear Factor" the geeks are coming!

Wikipedia, however, offers a more contemporary description of  a geek as a "person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by technology and imagination."

The key here is "fascinated" and  "obsessively."  Long live geeks, both kinds -- those that bite the heads off live chickens and snakes and those mysterious creatures obessessed with all-things technological.

Geeks have been reinventing themselves in recent years.  At one time, a Geek was just another four letter word  for NERD. Now, before you hit the delete key on me, back in the day, nerds were okay.  Let's face it, we wouldn't have half the things we have now without geeks.

The antithesis of the high school jock, the stereotype of the nerd was once considered to be a pimply-faced, graham crackerish, shirt-buttoned-to-chin, pocket-protected brainy (mostly) guy that played with toys (preferably those that ran on electricity or exploded in the chemistry lab) well-beyond puberty.

Today, however, the word geek  clamors for respect and power in the minds of the free world.

Geeks drive the economy (remember the Dot.Com bubble?), Geeks drive the blogosphere. Geeks are smart. Geeks are so cool. I want to be a Geek when I grow up.

I read with great interest and some hilarity Robert Scoble's blog about a co-worker who failed miserably on the geek-o-meter test. The guy didn't know what an RSS feed was or what it would do to help traffic come to his website.

According to the Guardian Unlimited:

RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. It's an XML file that can be read by special feed reading software or a web service you can use from your web browser. Put the address of one of our web feeds into your reader, and it will display the latest headlines, each one with a synopsis and link that will take you to the full story.

I'd probably fail the geek-o-meter test too in one way or another.  Apologies to my geek-friends out there (both of you).

As Robert fumes with aplomb:

Sorry, if you do a marketing site and you don't have an RSS feed today you should be fired.

I'll say it again. You should be fired if you do a marketing site without an RSS feed.

Oh, did I mention geeks are really cool.

For those of us content-driven folks out there in the world, the geekish/freakish world of ever-expanding technologies is a little bit scary. I don't do so well in a server-closet other than to look at all those pretty little lights flashing in the dim glow of super-chilled air.

I really don't  feel all that sorry for Robert's co-worker. Don't ask if you don't want an honest answer. The dude is clearly driven by the desire to produce content that will inspire consumers to wrack up even more expenses on their credit cards, but there is still something to say for keeping up with the technology.

Hey, with Robert on the job who needs Donald Trump?

By the way, according to the San Francisco Chronicle  blog pioneer, Justin Hall, has quit blogging after 11 years.

 

 

Rena Effendi

 

 

Fifty Crows is hosting photographer Rena Effendi at UC Berkeley on March 3, 2004

Photojournalism's "hand of god" in the age of seamless digital manipulation

Dennis Dunleavy photo Mesa Grande (1988).

We've been discussing the difference between chemical and digital processes in the visual journalism class. I thought it would be helpful to show an example of how photojournalists in the past used to  burn down of the edges of a frame to enhance visual traffic toward the dominant subject.  We used to refer to this technique as the "hand of god" and it can be traced back to a style used by photographic printers in the 1930s through the 1980s.

Today, with the introduction of PhotoShop and the ease in which images may be manipulated photojournalists and editors are more sensitive to such techniques.

Many newspapers and magazines have adopted guidelines for photojournalist using digital imaging software.

Kenny Irby of the Poynter Institute

Irby (2003) writes about policy adopted by the Charlotte Obersever newspaper that is worthwhile reviewing here as it pretains to our present conversation.

Charlotte Observer Photo guideline policy

1. Adjustments to any image will be limited to standard industry "dodging and burning" practices to accurately reflect the scene which was photographed.
2. No colors will be altered from the original scene photographed. This includes excessive changes in density and saturation levels.
3. Backgrounds cannot be eliminated ("burned down") or aggressively toned under any circumstance.
4. All original digital images must be downloaded into Pix Box for editing or review if necessary. When transmitting on location, original files will be downloaded upon return. All printouts for editing will be from original digital camera files.
5. Cloning (rubber stamp tool in Photoshop) can only be used as a touch up tool for excessive dust or other imperfections.
6. All photos prepared for contests will follow the Observer's photo correction guidelines and should be toned as originally corrected by the photographer.
7. Photo illustrations are the only format where our correction guidelines do not need to be followed. The image must clearly be an illustration (not confused with a documentary image) and labeled photo illustration.
8. Backgrounds of an image will not be dropped out or cloned without the specific approval of a photo editor during the page design process. These images should be bylined as photo illustrations.

Manipulating images in news work is hardly a new topic. Photojournalism has been concerned with post-production technology impacting the veracity of news images for a very long time. Nevertheless, in an educational context  it is important to keep these issues on the radar.

In August of 2003, the North Carolina Press Photographers Association took away three awards given to Observer photojournalist Patrick Schneider the previous year. According to the Observer:

After an extensive internal audit of hundreds of Schneider's original images and published photos from his six years at The Observer, the newspaper's editors determined that in three photos he used aggressive toning techniques that altered colors and background shades in a way that was not consistent with the actual scene. Nothing was added or moved in any of Schneider's photos.

 

As Vin Alabiso of the Associated Press stated early on in the adoption of electronic photo manipulation, "The content of a photograph will NEVER be changed or manipulated in any way." 

In order to maintain credibility, photojournalism students must be taught and reminded that this important tenet is a core value in the field.

Two recent articles focus on how much toning in PhotoShop alters the content and integrity of the image.

In "Seeing is no longer believing: Manipulating digital images has never been easier or faster. But there's a fine line between 'improving' a photo and altering it," Susan Llewelyn Leach of The Christian Science Monitor does a good job of providing a context of how editors and photojournalists wrestle with issues of manipulation.

Further,  Donald Winslow of News Photographer Magazine writes in "Three entries In WHNPA's "Eyes of History 2005" contest lead to new guidelines" about  concerns over "juiced-up" images.

media ethics

Sites I have Visited Recently: David Douglas Duncan: Online Exhibition  from University of Texas at Austin. PhotoNow

Robert Gumpert's Golf#2

Photo Copyright Robert Gumpert

Golf # 2 is part of Robert Gumpert's insightful Postcard Series

Amount of water it would take, per day, to support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum: 2.5 billion gallons.

Amount of water used, per day, to irrigate the world’s golf courses: 2.5 billion gallons

Average amount of pesticides used per acre, per year, on golf
courses: 18 pounds

Average amount of pesticides used, per acre, per year, in agriculture:
2.7 pounds

Sources: Water usage: Chris Reuther, Know Your Environment, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1999; National Golf Foundation; State of the World 2004; Pesticides: “EcoMall: A Greener Golf Course, 2004;” Thailand: U.K. Sports Turf Research Institute; Colorado River: Environmental Defense; Las Vegas: Associated Press.

 

I like the way Robert uses imagery as social commentary. I like the way Robert makes connections to the world as a documentary photographer. His perspective is always sobering and realistic, albeit somewhat depressing to some of us to hear at times. Robert is honest about his opininons about how photojournalism has changed over the past two decades.

 

Robert visits with advanced visual journalism students at San Jose State University after his presentation. Students stayed on to ask  more questions about his work and the field of visual journalism as a career.

 

Robert Gumpert's work appears at nbpictures.com.

Say What? Some confusion over the Omar Vega Story

Dirck Halstead, father of the Platypus movement in photojournalism, has weighed in on my comments

concerning the Omar Vega case.  Unfortunately, Dirck may have misunderstood my observations. In fact, his claim that I have been among the faculty rushing to Omar's defense is erroneous and misleading.  I have said that I would like to give Omar the benefit of the doubt until all the facts have been made public. I have not rushed headlong into the First Amendment defense offered by others in the journalism program at San Fancisco State.  As an educator, I have been following Omar's case becuase I believe it provides an opportunity for me to teach about journalism, ethics and law in a "real-time" way.

Dirck Writes:

Since then members of the faculty of the journalism school have sprung to his defense. Among them is Dennis Dunleavy, a regular contributor to The Digital Journalist. He compared Vega's "reporting" to be similar to a photograph he took from a bridge of illegal aliens entering the U.S, crossing a river.

In an attempt to illustrate the complexities of the case, I presented two anecdotes from my own experience. I think I was pretty clear to point out the ethical concerns raised in the two scenarios. The first scenario had me photographing from a bridge as immigrants crossed into the U.S. illegally. In the second scenario, I was actually crossing the river with the immigrants to get a more personal perspective.

It is really important to clarify that I do see a very strong distinction between journalist as observer and journalist as participant. If Omar had just come upon the scene in his travels and photographed the crime that would be journalistic. I think that because Omar had a relationship with the individuals there is the perception that he was a participant.

Dirck misunderstands my point when he writes:

I have to disagree strongly. One of the principals [SIC]  of being a "witness" as opposed to being"complicit" is whether the observer has any interaction or potential of influencing the event being recorded. Unless Dunleavy had the means to actually interfere with the event, such as calling the police, his action of taking a photograph from the bridge did not affect the event itself. This is not an existential argument.

In my first posting I wrote about the Heisenberg principle and how Mr. Vega's actions may be called into question simply by his proximity to the accused. The Heisenberg principle of uncertainty contends that even the most innocent act of observing somehow alters that which is being observed. I wrote at this time:

Mr. Vega, as a freshman living in the dorm, may have had the same privileged first-hand witness to events as prisoner guards did at Abu Grahib. However, in his defense, according the Times article, Mr. Vega “went out of his way to make sure students knew their pictures could be published.” Nevertheless, how much does the Heisenberg principle account for what is done in front of a camera, especially when it concerns the “hot house” culture of college life.

I think it is important to take exception to Dirck's assessment that I am among the journalism faculty that sprung to Omar's defense.  In fact, I have been very careful not to rush into the fray of judging this case based  solely on the merits of a blind commitment to the First Amendment. I believed and still believe that there are too many variables in this case. I have said several times now that we need to hear more about this incident.

In a San Jose Mercury News article I was quoted in a way that pretty much makes my take on the situation somewhat skeptical.

San Jose State University photojournalism coordinator Dennis Dunleavy said the Vega story has raised interesting ethical questions.

``Did Mr. Vega run a few ethical red lights on the way to the front page?,'' Dunleavy said, adding he would like to give Vega the benefit of the doubt but does not know all of the details.

``I protect the First Amendment rights of journalists to do their jobs, but I also wonder about an 18-year-old who is photographing questionable activities.''

In my commentaries I posed a few questions to illustrate the complexity of this issue. In one post I asked:

Was Mr. Vega merely on a journalistic crusade to expose a potentially embarrassing aspect of college life or was he in some way complicit in the activities in which he had special access to as a dorm resident? The on-going debate about whether Mr. Vega ran a few ethical red lights on the way to the front page, especially in the case of an alleged car burglary, raises the issue of how far journalists, in this case a college freshman interested in journalism, will go to get a story and make headlines.

In a more recent post I wrote:

I have been reluctant to completely sign on to the "all or nothing" attitude promulgated by SFSU journalism faculty that Omar’s actions, as a journalist on the evening in question should be protected under the First Amendment no matter what. I have said that I do not waiver in my support of the First Amendment, but I also sensed in this case that there might have been more going on then we were being told.

Dirck's comments misses the core of my concerns. What I have been trying to say is exactly what he posits:

One of the principals [SIC] of being a "witness" as opposed to being"complicit" is whether the observer has any interaction or potential of influencing the event being recorded.

This observation is critical in understanding the line between participation in questionable activities and maintaining journlaistic integrity.

media ethics

Birds Come Home to Roost

I made this picture at a truck stop in Northern California last week. It seems somehow appropriate for my first day on a new blog site.

Technorati Photos

Peggy Noonan nails it with "The Blogs Must Be Crazy."

Robert Scoble, who is taking a well-earned break from blogging this week, passes along a  article about about blogging from Wall Street Journal writer Peggy Noonan.

Noonan suggests blogging represents an ever-expanding frontier on fringes of the information age -- for a while -- anyway.  Although some in the Mainstream conceive of blogging as the "Wild West", Noonan counters this argument with a well-reasoned logic.

It is not true that there are no controls. It is not true that the blogosphere is the Wild West. What governs members of the blogosphere is what governs to some degree members of the MSM, and that is the desire for status and respect. In the blogosphere you lose both if you put forward as fact information that is incorrect, specious or cooked. You lose status and respect if your take on a story that is patently stupid. You lose status and respect if you are unprofessional or deliberately misleading. And once you've lost a sufficient amount of status and respect, none of the other bloggers link to you anymore or raise your name in their arguments. And you're over. The great correcting mechanism for people on the Web is people on the Web.

Noonan is a voice of sanity in the hype given to the blogosphere these days. For journalism educators, Noonan points out that blogging is a force to be integrated into how we train future journalists.

Someone is going to address the "bloggers are untrained journalists" question by looking at exactly what "training," what education in the art/science/craft/profression of journalism, the reporters and editors of the MSM have had in the past 60 years or so. It has seemed to me the best of them never went to J-school but bumped into journalism along the way--walked into a radio station or newspaper one day and found their calling. Bloggers signify a welcome return to that old style. In journalism you learn by doing, which is what a lot of bloggers are doing.

Blogging

Online Privacy Event at SJSU

According to the Washington Post, identity fraud and theft impact as many as 10 million Americans each year. 

Online privacy is a growing concern and well worth taking the time to understand more about. There  is a free event next week (Feb. 23) hosted by the New York Times and San Jose State, but you have to reserve a spot. Extra credit is available for anyone taking any of my classes this semester.

Online Bind: Ensuring Privacy...Information Age

The New York Times and San Jose State University present:

Online Bind: Ensuring Privacy, Access and Security in the Information   Age

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 7 - 8:30 p.m.
        San Jose State University
        Engineering Building, Room 189

Are there any guarantees of privacy when we venture online? Join New York Times   senior business writer, John Markoff, and a distinguished panel of experts for   a discussion about protecting individual rights online while maintaining the   security of our nation's information systems.

• Moderator: John Markoff, senior writer,     Business Day, The New York Times

Panel:

• Jeff Platon, VP, CMO, Product & Technology Marketing,     Security, Cisco Systems
• Ken Silva, VP, Networking and Information Security, VeriSign
• Mark Stamp, assistant professor, Computer Science, San     Jose State University
• Gary Winuk, chief deputy director, Homeland Security for     California

Cyber security is a big issue. Security Watchdog is a good blog to keep track of for issues related to cyber security. Last year alone more than $1 billion was stolen in Online thefts from nearly 10 million people.

Apparently even the government is finding it difficult to keep computer security standards high. Brian Krebs, a writer with the Washington Post, recently reported on how the Department of Homeland Security is failing in the war of data mining. The Department of Homeland Security along with a list of several other agencies has failed to meet a wide variety of computer security standards.

Krebs reports:

For the fifth straight year, at least half of all federal agencies received a grade of "D" or worse on the House Government Reform Committee's annual cyber-security report card. Agencies that received failing marks include the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs. A grade of "D" was awarded to the departments of Defense and Treasury, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Small Business Administration.

On a more positive note, Krebs writes:

Several agencies made significant gains in 2004. The Department of Justice, for example, increased its score from an "F" in 2003 to a "B-minus" last year. The U.S. Agency for International Development earned an "A-plus" -– up from a "C-minus" in 2003 -- though the agency was among three this year that failed to submit its internal assessment for an independent evaluation.

The Department of Transportation elevated its grade from a "D-plus" in 2003 to an "A-minus" last year, an increase that department chief information officer Dan Matthews attributed to high-level attention to computer security issues.

Online "phishing" schemes are on the rise. Phishing refers to scams that trick people Online into revealing personal financial data. See this story: Hackers Phishing For Info To Steal Your Identity

If you are looking for more on the business of personal data mining I think you may find Robert O'Harrow's piece in the Washington Post very informative.

Business is Figuring out how to make more money from digital photography. Going Visual, a new book by Alexis Gerard and Bob Goldstein (published by Wiley) profiles how companies are using digital photography to improve productivity and maximize performance.  The book features how small and big business are using migrating from text-based  to image-rich  communication to enhance earnings by tracking performance.

Security

A different perspective on the Omar Vega case

Up to this point, most of the press about Omar Vega, the San Francisco State University freshman arrested for photographing a burglary, has been fairly one-sided. It has been one-sided in the sense that we haven't really heard from the other students involved in the case or from the university all that much.   I have been reluctant to completely sign on to the "all or nothing" attitude promulgated by SFSU journalism faculty that Omar’s actions, as a journalist on the evening in question should be protected under the First Amendment no matter what. I have said that I do not waiver in my support of the First Amendment, but I also sensed in this case that there might have been more going on then we were being told.  Recently, a posting on Chronwatch offers a different perspective on Omar's situation. According to Chronwatch:

Vega’s actions and multiple explanations for his behavior are not the most serious crimes here. The carefully orchestrated parroting of “serious danger of impeding the First Amendment” refrain, first trumpeted by Mayorga and dutifully blown in turn by Burks, Kobre, and Vega, mocks the intent of that important right.  Vega can be excused his youthful indiscretion. Burks, the University’s Journalism Department Chair and Kobre, have greater reason to be ashamed. By latching onto an obvious platform certain to provoke controversy, those professors abrogate their essential mission to help raise ethical journalists. By fostering the Vega saga, Burks and Kobre send perhaps the most damaging message of all, that the journalist has a duty not to the public, but to his own selfish interests.

What troubles me most about such assertions is that, if true, photojournalism will suffer yet another black eye in the public perception battle over the profession's credibility and ethical standards.    The Chronwatch article provides about aspects of the case that the mainstream media have yet to fully disclose.

Vega and the other SF State students were brought separately before the director of the college’s Housing and Residential Services, DJ Morales. Vega told Morales that he had come upon the group of people clustered around the car, had no prior knowledge the students intended to commit a crime, and didn’t know that money or CDs had been stolen. After Morales explained that she had spoken with other individuals involved in the events of that evening and that their stories were somewhat different, Vega changed his story and said that he had heard the others talking about finding the car keys and going to search the car. In his revision, Vega told Morales that he then grabbed his camera and drove with the other individuals to look for the car. Vega continued to deny that the other students were his friends despite their statements to the contrary. He averred that he had only known them a few months and that they should have known that he was acting as an objective journalist and reporter, not as their friend and accomplice. According to a report in Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle however, another student told police “Omar was part of the group. We’re all friends, and he wanted to find the car just as bad as everyone else.

I hope, for everyone's sake, that this information is wrong -- way wrong.  I hope that for Omar's sake, and for the sake of journalistic integrity that the facts will show no complicity in the alledged misdeeds.   

Omar will talk about his arrest and his first amendment rights as a photographer on Thursday March 3 at 7 p.m. in the San Francisco Exposure Gallery, 801 Howard (near the corner of 4th Street across from the Moscone Center).  As educators, journalists and students we have a vested interest in learning from trials and tribulations of this case. Stayed tuned for more Media Ethics

Niche Blogs Rule the Blogoshpere

I am beginning to realize that the true power of blogging resides in the collaborative and democratizing potential of communication between the sources and the users of niche information.

As Robert Scoble argues, "My readers are my editors. When I get something wrong you should see how they jump all over me. In fact, many take great glee pointing out when I get it wrong." 

Excellent point, but I am still inclined to think that there is something else going on here--something clearly distinct between conventional journalistic practices and blogging. 

First and foremost, I think there is a very big difference between general and niche audiences in print and on the Internet.  With the highest respect for Robert's work, he writes, for the most part, to a highly specialized niche audience. His readers, I presume, are heavily engaged in emerging technology. Conversations at this level tend to be geek-to-geek and not necessarily geek-to-average citizen.  Through blogging Robert offers an expertise many people crave.

Knowledge is power.

Robert's niche is still a niche--a very smart niche--but all along it is about like-minded individuals talking at and to each other. It makes  sense that Robert's readers feel comfortable pointing out mistakes to him--that's the beauty of a niche. However, in journalism the audience has traditionally been non-specific, i.e. the general public. 

If blogging is going to change journalism, it is imperative that general audiences become increasingly more literate about the potential of emerging technologies as they relate to democratic civics and social responsibility. Blogging allows the average citizen to contribute to a larger conversation about the future of our world. But is blogging any better at this then any other channel of mass media?  I think there is great hope in this communicative format. Whether specialized or mass, blogging's potential lies with the hope of empowering citizens to engage in community building. 

My discussions with Robert Scoble exemplify the potential of this medium. With blogging, readers are no longer constrained to a hierarchy of what has been determined as "news" for them. Bloggers can either challenge the status quo or they can become a part of it.  I believe journalism plays an essential role in society by providing a context for understanding a wide array of issues relevant to a participatory democracy.

Unfortunately niche blogs, like this one, take the reader only so far in this process. At the same time, couple these niche blogs together and a critical mass is formed.

blogging