Dennis Dunleavy

Another Day, Another Slam on Journalistic Integrity

Jack Shafer's article yesterday in Slate Magazine explores the dangers publishers have been encountering with their reliance on using stock photos. Shafer points out that with today's access to web-based stock picture agencies it has become increasingly difficult to make sure the context in which pictures are used match the words. This happened recently when Nature Medicine ran a picture accompanying a story about foster children in Harlem being used as human guinea pigs for HIV drugs. The stock photo used to illustrate the article turned out to be from an orphanage in Ethiopia. Ooops. 

Photo Credit: Slate

Stuff happens, but at what cost?

In an age of instant communication, as well as the pressures of commerce, design decisions run the risk of further encouraging the common public perception that the media cares more about shock value and making money than it does about getting the story straight.  All apologies aside, the damage is what it is -- people aren't always buying into the notion that what they see and read can be trusted.
Shafer notes:

Picking the "wrong" photo for a magazine story was a lot harder back in the old days, before the Web-based photo agencies got going. The job of picking images usually went to experienced photo editors, people who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of photography and photographers. They had to assign photos or know how to find the picture they needed in the fat books of stock pix they kept on their shelves.

The "Eye Phone": Changing the way we see?

We've have come a long way in photography since the days of hauling around several clunky Nikon bodies and a gazillion lenses. Everything about using the iPhone indicates that designers are figuring out ways to tap into the experience of seeing. Designers know that we are all children at heart and the closer technology plays into our senses and experiences, the more effective the design will be.

The iPhone, or in this case the "eye phone", allows those of us who are serious about photography to lighten up a bit. Sure there are issues with the technology, but there is something else at work here beyond the limitations of focal length and white balance.

In a sense, the camera phone is changing the way people see and experience seeing the world in new and exciting ways. Seeing is becoming an experience now -- the results are so immediate, and for the most part pleasing -- that we can not escape how the capturing of images has morphed into an extension of ourselves. We no longer just make pictures to capture a moment that is personally important for us to remember, we are making pictures because the camera makes it so much more enjoyable and easier to do so.

Revolutionary?

In some ways, yes, because the way we see is being driven by the way in which we interact with the technology.

Ethics and Public Faith in Journalism Takes a Hit, Again

At a time when public confidence in journalism continues to slip, questionable professional practices or lapses in personal judgment are having as much an impact on the industry as they have on a given individual.

Last month, when, Toledo Blade photographer Allan Detrich digitally altered an image to make it less distracting, his actions, whether intentional or accidental, provide yet even more fuel to the fire of public distrust. Apparently, Detrich's  creative license may prove to extend beyond this one incident.

We now have reached a point in our society when, at times, the media seems determined to abdicate a portion of its commitment to the truth, for expediency.

As a representative of an industry already under intense public scrutiny, Detrich, who recently resigned from the newspaper, now joins a growing list of photojournalists, such as Charlotte Observer photographer Patrick Schneider, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Hajj, and Los Angeles Times photographer Brian Walski, who have succumbed in recent years to the temptations of digital technology. 

The big question these incidents raise is simple: Why do some photographers feel compelled to manipulate images, while others live with what they get? Getting to the answer, however, is far more complex and may reside actually in a culture, which excels in competition and individualism.

People do not like being lied to. Digital manipulation, the addition or subtraction of contributing or distracting elements in a frame, is a type of fraud and lying.

Jonathan Wallace observes, “The reason that I hate lies is because, like you, I wish to navigate carefully through life, and to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me, you know your position but you have given me false data which obscures mine.”

Journalists have always been moral agents of culture and societal tastes. News content falls within an informational/representational system that changes over time. Journalism has its good times and its bad times throughout history. Within this informational/representational system, however, truth has always remained a core journalistic virtue. Journalists must struggle to obtain and maintain truth in reportage because every situation they encounter is slightly different – always presenting differing degrees of moral complexity. 

The act of altering an image to correct a deficiency may seem innocent enough on the surface, but deeper down the shift from fact to fiction signifies a moral choice that is informed by either ignorance or duplicity.   Regardless of motive or rationale, Detrich’s case should remind us that journalists function to serve the public good through a series of professional and societal expectations and obligations that are imposed upon them.

In this digital age, these expectations and obligations become intensified to the point, where opportunities to make things look better or to get the better of the competition are just too easy.

Ultimately, it seems not to matter how rigorous and vigilant the media is in detecting and ousting those who lie through their photography and reporting. The damage is done -- public faith, once again, is lost. 

The Techno Toilet: All pimped out and nowhere to go

"Fear not, boring toilet victims!  Thanks to Roto-Rooter®, the ultimate toilet now exists. They’ve developed a customized, one-of-a-kind throne; a truly “Pimped out John,” designed to fulfill all of your wildest bathroom dreams."

Source: Roto-Rooter Press Release

Sometimes there are moments when you have to stand back and just scratch your head at how far a company or companies will go to catch the attention of the media to sell products.

Roto-Rooter recently announced a sweepstakes where people can enter to win a techno commode featuring a flat screen TV, iPod, laptop computer, Xbox 360, DVD player, exercise system, cup warmer / cooler, and an "emergency" button for service. I guess the only thing they are missing is the web cam.

After we stop laughing, there is always time to think about the curious relationship between new and older technologies. Much of the attraction between functional technologies such as the toilet and newer technologies designed for personal pleasure is connected to ritual and routine.

The toilet is a technology that has pretty much stayed the same for hundreds of years. Now manufacturers of personal media are latching on to ways to push their products right into the toilet.

I can't wait to see what a 2-year-old child would do with all this tech when they are potty training. Or how about the night someone has a little too much to drink.

Visual hegemony and The New York Times front page

When it comes to understanding how people consume pictures either as news, information, or entertainment we need to think in terms of how social reality is constructed for us by the gatekeepers and agenda setters of the world.

How do we know what something is supposed to represent or mean without some sort of reference to relate it to?

For those fortunate to have the gift of sight, much of our informational system is based on the repetition and recall of images.

In reviewing the front page display of three lead images in The New York Times today there is an interesting example of how social realities are constructed through the use and positioning of images in the news. In this case, viewers are presented with three distinct impressions of the conflict in the Middle East.

However, the signification of the overall message is dependent on how the pictures interact with one another. In another sense, there is a gestalt to the display as each image builds meaning off one another. In other words,  the collective meaning of the three pictures subordinates the power of reading the images individually.

The New York Times editors have a hierarchy of importance in mind when they arrange the picture of a Marine escorting evacuees off a beach above and bigger than two smaller supporting images – one showing Hezbollah fighters and the other depicting a corpse. 

There is symmetry to the arrangement of visual elements here that provides a sense of authority for the narrative. The arrangement of the pictures -- two below and one above --is a structurally semiotic triad of meaning -- icon, index and symbol.

From a semiotic perspective, the combination of these images tells a story through a relationship of signs -- some more symbolic in nature than others. All three images are iconic, but the two images below rely heavily on the juxtaposition of index against symbolism.

The picture of the fighters on the left acts as an index or something that is pointing to the symbolism of the corpse on the right. In other words, this combination of images is a construction with a very pointed message. In this case, the picture of the fighters signifies death, terror, fear, and insecurity in relation to the adjacent corpse. Meanwhile, the picture of the Marine above signifies security, safety, and escape from the two images below. 

No doubt, the editors are carefully constructing a visual narrative for the reader designed to frame the current crisis in a specific way.

There is a visual hegemony to the arrangement of these pictures – one that suggests how viewers are directed to a specific ideology in ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling about events. Antonio Gramsci observed that people are not only subordinated to the will of a dominant group through physical and mental coercion, but also through repeated exposure, cultivation and indoctrination to a set of prevailing values, attitudes, and ideas.

This is what I read through the editor’s selection, scaling, and positioning of images on a page. In some ways, perhaps, my interpretation is a bit too excessive and paranoid. It could be that my reading may be too critical for some in that it suggests that the gatekeepers of information have an agenda and motive for deciding what is news that is not always objective and unbiased.

Then again, for others, thinking about how images construct realities may be well worthwhile considering.

Content Maybe King in Photojournalism, But Light Makes it Right

I used to think that photojournalism was predominantly driven by content, but there is much more to it these days.

Subject matter -- the story the image tells -- is absolutely near the center of what photojournalists do, but as the field matures and the aesthetics of  image-making becomes increasingly precedent, there is another deeper foundational element at work here.

Although the storytelling qualities of photojournalistic practice remains high, I think that the process begins and ends with the characteristics of light.

In other words, the intensity and direction of light can make a story come to life. I think this why photographers seek out the sweet light of early morning or the subtle tones of a sunset.

Signs of War

According to the The New York Times the image above is a
sign posted at Camp Nama in Iraq where some "detainees were used as paintball targets."

Beyond the political and human rights issues associated with such a message, I find myself haunted by the possible significations found in the relationship between the words and the abstract forms used in the sign.

The phrase "no blood, no foul" is commonly heard on basketball courts. Now there is a new context to consider.

Drawing on visual semiotics as a theory for decoding how images convey meaning there are some interesting visual cues at work here. In my mind, there is a strong gestalt between the words and the figures.

There is the simplicity of the visual construction here -- the effective use of negative space and the relative distances of the words sliding up and down the sides of the triangle -- that seem to suggest a high level of formal and declarative order.

According to New York Times writers by Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall,  the sign is part of a larger message at Task Force 6-26's top-secret detention facility.

"Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: 'If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it.'"

What are the iconic, indexical, and symbolic levels of meaning conveyed by such visual messages?  Do such messages index or point toward the normalization of attitudes dealing with the treatment of prisoners in Iraq?  In other words, does a sign like this foment the abuse of prisoners by establishing and maintaining what appears to me to an increasingly game-like culture of combat associated with military actions?

It is this last question that intrigues me most here. The transference of first person shooter computer games to military action -- in combat and in play seems to be in evidence here. Paintball moves the virtual reality of the computer shooter games into the real world. By extension, there appears to be a connection between fantasy games and warfare.

A simple analysis of the geometry of the dominant figures in the frame -- the circle within a black triangle -- suggest a sort of reciprocity.  Maybe I am over-reaching  a bit, but reciprocity  from a social psychological perspective refers to in-kind negative and positive responses.

According to Wikipedia:

In social psychology, reciprocity refers to in-kind positive or negative responses of individuals towards the actions of others. Thus positively interpreted actions elicit positive responses and vice versa.... Reciprocal actions are important to social psychology as they can help explain the maintenance of social norms. If a sufficient proportion of the population interprets the breaking a social norm by another as a hostile action and if these people are willing to take (potentially costly) action to punish the rule-breaker then this can maintain the norm in the absence of formal sanctions.

In this case, I am visually interpreting the geometric forms of the circle within the black triangular field as constituting a reciprocal relationship -- one establishing and maintaining a social norm endemic in a "barracks culture."  A denotative or literal reading may lead a viewer to see the circle as a paintball. However, deeper readings may produce more subtle deeply psychological connotative interpretations.

The Familiar Made Strange in a Badly Broken World

In her book Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture, Barbara Savedoff suggests that in order to understand photography the viewer must understand how the subject matter in the image is transformed by the process of rendering the world through a lens. Photographs, she argues, "Can make strange the familiar sights and objects of our world, although this is not usually how we think of them....Photographs transform their subjects. They have the power to make even the most familiar objects appear strange, the most chaotic events appear structured, or the most mundane items appear burdened with meaning" (p.2).

There is an article in the September 5 issue of Newsweek that, in my mind, makes the familiar seem strange. The article concerns the fate of a U.S. Marine who earned distinction in 2004 for collecting the human remains of more than 184 dead soldiers in Iraq as a mortician. Now, the Marine, Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir, is on trial for attempted murder after firing a shotgun into a crowd to silence some noisy neighbors outside his home in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

In a recent interview, author Salman Rushdie, who was sentenced to death in 1989 by Ayatullah Khomeini for his writings, contends, "It seems to me that the nature of true tragedy is when something is so badly broken that with the best will in the world, you can't put it back together again and what was broken has to stay broken." In my mind, Cotnoir's story reminds me of how badly broken our world is.

The images used to illustrate the Cotnoir story in Newsweek support Rushdie's definition of tragedy. Set off against a black background above the headline, "Walking Among the Dead", the insignia of the Marine's First Mortuary Affairs Company is loaded with symbolism. The insignia depicts a  skull and crossbones arrangement on a blood red identification tag. The familiar shape of the crossbones, however, is a cross composed of a shovel and gun. The signification of the three visual elements, skull, gun and shovel leads to a tension of mental images and associations.

To the right, split by the double-truck layout of the page, there are four more images: Cotnoir's handcuffed court appearance, the funeral home where he worked as a civilian, a copy of an article acclaiming his accomplishments as Marine of the Year, and finally, a military escort carrying the flag-draped coffin of a dead US solider.

There is something "broken", to use Rushdie's term, about the juxtaposition of these images. Even before reading the story, the reader is goaded by the visual cues commanding more than 50 percent of the space on the pages. The representational system in which news photography is embedded into the context of storytelling in the mainstream media implicitly and explicitly carries with it the ideologies of the designers and editors.

In the conveyance of a complex story such as Cotnoir's, editors and designers look for visuals that lend support to the reportage's thematic focus. In the selection of images chosen for this report, how are readers lead to an inevitable conclusion?

The theme of tragedy in such presentation is normalized or made familiar for the reader, but it is also made strange. The reader must not accept such visual re-presentations as a form of truth-telling because the process as been contorted by the cliche conventions acquired in packaging the news. Without considering the "whole story" concerning Cotnoir's situation--one which led the former soldier to shoot into a  crowd of "late-night partyers"-- the reader's perspective is prematurely biased by the imagery on the page. The images, in this context, foreshorten and reduce the larger issues dwelling beneath the surface of the story. Not only are we confronted with the disturbing reality of soldiers returning from combat, but also the subtext here suggesting ethnic tensions between peoples.

Cotnoir's journey from battlefield hero to disturbed veteran raises the very real human costs of international conflict. The images accompanying Cotnoir's story  may on the surface attempt to be emblematic of the soldier's struggle back to normalcy, but in reality they merely suggest the predictable nature of news -- one which is packaged and framed for us like visual sound bites. In other words, the pictures we see transform the familiar and burden us with the daunting task of unraveling and decoding the deeper meanings hidden within the body of the story.
   

If the Shoe Fits: Digital Manipulation Again

Here's a good example of how advertising uses digital manipulation to enhance an image without realizing the consequences of the deception. This was from a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday. Maybe the designer was counting on people not noticing that they gave the model two right feet when applying the effect.

Adobe Gobbles Macromedia: Living in a One-Horse/One-Newspaper Software town

My heart sank a bit yesterday when the news came out that Adobe, the biggest fish in the graphic arts software pond, would be merging with Macromedia, the second-biggest fish. Mergers may be good for stakeholders, but rarely do they benefit users. I used to think of having Adobe and Macromedia around the same way I loved living in a two newspaper town.  When towns had two newspapers, competition for audience readership was intense and forced everyone involved to be more engaged in the process. If  you live in a one-horse or one-newspaper town you have to get used to having only what that horse or newspaper can give you.  It's the same way in the world of software design.

Although both Macromedia and Adobe created some products that were targeted toward similar audiences, such as Dreamweaver or GoLive, Freehand or Illustrator, they both controlled different segments of the same market with distinct products like Adobe's PhotoShop and Macromedia's Flash. With the acquisition of Macromedia by Abode some of my favorite software applications, particularly Dreamweaver, might dissappear and I'll be forced to work with products that I am less fond of. 

In the world of technology battles over control of markets are not always fought in corporate boardrooms. In the geek world, below the surface of corporate domination of the free world as we know it, there are two distinct sets of thinkers -- developers and designers.

Developers and designers often have conflicting agendas when it comes to new and innovative software. Developers and designers are very different animals. Developers seem more inclined to get excited about the structural underpinnings of how a software operates, while designers appear more interested in applying and adapting the software to solving particular creative needs.

However, the business side of this left brain v. right brain struggle seems to temper what gets developed and designed. Abode's strength, I am inclined to guess, has pretty much leaned toward the design and creative end of software development. At the same, Macromedia's strength has been more the domain of the developer. I think that is why Flash and Director, Macromedia's top guns, were offered even though they basically did similar things. Even though both products had overlapping attributes, one appealed to designers and the other to developers. Adobe has never really allowed such an identity crisis in software application design to surface, although I think it sure came close when it released PDF version 6.0  a while back to the dismay of its users who became impatient with waiting for it to load on their machines.

It takes time to adjust to a one-horse or one-newspaper town. Jobs will be lost, software applications cast aside, and egos will be bruised. In the end, I imagine, some spirits may be dampened and some options will be lost.