\nThe altered image on the top makes the smoke look much more menacing and the city darker.<\/p>\n
\nThe altered image on the top makes the smoke look much more menacing and the city darker.<\/p>\n
I have a deep distrust of the press.<\/p>\n
Every reporter has an angle, and they can cut and paste quotes and reports to show off that angle. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all do it, and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it all the time, but they do it enough to double-check anything that smells a little fishy. And also, to double-check some stuff that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem fishy.<\/p>\n
Slate presents a fascinating article about altered digital images that have appeared in the press lately (link<\/a>). They link to several other pages, including what they call a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rogue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gallery<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of altered images. So this is a whole new way to not trust them.<\/p>\n Some are simply altered to make people look a little better, or to improve the composition of a shot. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m against those, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really offended by the politically motivated alterations (like combining shots to make it appear as though John Kerry and Jane Fonda shared a stage to protest Vietnam).<\/p>\n Slate asks what kind of alterations are ok and what aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. That is, what about enhancements to see something, vs. zooming in, vs. brightening a color?<\/p>\n I think that the test is pretty simple, though maybe I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thought it through. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s replace the photographer with an imaginary, and verbose, reporter on the scene (he writes a thousand words for every picture).<\/p>\n If that reporter, looking with naked eyes, or binoculars, or a telescope, or night-vision goggles, could see the same thing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the photo, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legit. If not, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably not.<\/p>\n If he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see a dark sky, then the image shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be altered to show a darker, menacing sky. If he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see a multi-racial group, then he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t combine images to make one. But if he can see the note that the president writes (asking for a bathroom break), then a photographer should be able to enhance the image to the point that the audience can see the note, too. (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not imaginary. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a real note, on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gallery\u00e2\u20ac\u009d page linked to above.)<\/p>\n Whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s print or an image, they shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change the facts to suit their angle. But the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153facts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to mean the entire picture that an observer would see while standing there. Frame the picture, zoom in, enhance the note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The altered image on the top makes the smoke look much more menacing and the city darker. I have a deep distrust of the press. Every reporter has an angle, and they can cut and paste quotes and reports to show off that angle. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all do it, and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}