Carroll Distinguishes Between Truth and Accuracy in Photojournalism
- Situation Definition
On March 18, I attended Penn State’s N.N. Oweida Lecture in Journalism Ethics, presented this year by Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor of the Associated Press.
Carroll used multiple photojournalism cases that I will analyze to illustrate the gap between truth and accuracy.
The first of the two cases that brought me ethical messages was the case of Eddie Adams and his award-winning photograph of a Viet Cong prisoner’s execution in 1968 Saigon. Although Adams did not stage or manipulate the photo in any way, it was inaccurate because it misrepresented the prisoner being executed as an innocent victim. The second case Carroll introduced me to was the case of the recent World Press Photo Contest winner. Although the photograph truthfully shows an intimate event that happened in Belgium, the photograph inaccurately represents the real situation because the subjects knew the photo was to be taken.
II.Analysis
First, Eddie Adams’s photo brings to mind a journalist’s need to consider minimizing harm in ethical decision making. The reason Carroll brought the photo up was that Adams himself described the photo as inaccurate. The photo, which shows an ally of the United States executing a Viet Cong prisoner responsible for murdering allied soldiers, misrepresents the prisoner as the victim and the general as a violent murderer. According to Eddie Adams in a eulogy he wrote in Time in 1998, “Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera,” (Adams).
The ethical dilemma Adams faced when providing his photo to the Associated Press was whether or not the photo was newsworthy enough for distribution despite the inaccuracy depicted and the potential harm. An attempt to minimize harm and inaccuracy that Adams did make was to provide an explanation of the photograph alongside its appearances, but the explanation largely went ignored.
I would not give Adams’s decision to provide the photo a positive evaluation. Although I think it was right to alleviate the inaccuracy with the explanation, knowing that the picture could be shown out of context anyway would make me reconsider. According to On Mentors, Ethics, & Weapons, “…there should be a great responsibility put on you for every image produced for public consumption. The best reasons, ethically speaking, to show any news image are that it moves people to care and that it helps people to safely navigate through their daily lives,” (Lester 141). The photo Adams took moved people to feel sympathy for an enemy of the United States even though he had participated in killing U.S. soldiers and allies because of its inaccuracy; it did not move them to care about the true situation. Therefore, I think the photo caused more harm than good and should not have ethically been distributed.
In the second case, Giovanni Troilo faced the ethical dilemma of wanting to truthfully portray the gritty intimacy of a community in Belgium, but the only way to capture the situation was to stage a scene for his photograph. According to The New York Times, Troilo’s “The Dark Heart of Europe” photo series had been selected as a winner of the World Press Photo Contest, but the prize was taken away after the staging had been discovered. The event-taking place was a man and a woman having sexual intercourse in the back of a car, but Troilo had earlier placed a flashbulb in the car to illuminate the intimate moment for the camera. The reason this crosses an ethical line is because it suggests that the subjects were performing their act for the camera they knew would capture it, and it was therefore not accurate to the real situation.
I do not think that ethical decision-making can ever support staging a photograph, even if the staging is meant to set up a photograph that is a truthful representation of a newsworthy situation. I equate staging with fabrication even in that instance. The alternative Troilo should have pursued was taking the photograph without letting the subjects know prior or setting up lighting and taking an extra step to make sure to hide their identities.
Because Troilo’s attempt at lighting seems to me to be an attempt to take an artistic photo rather than an accurate photo for recognition, I want to compare him to Janet Cooke, the Washington Post writer who wrote a compelling, Pulitzer-winning story that turned out to be completely fabricated. In “The Janet Cooke tragedy: a lesson for J-education” by Don Corrigan, Corrigan explains that many journalism students questioned the problem with fabrication by saying “…there really wasn’t very much wrong with what Janet Cooke did in writing about little Jimmy hooked on heroin. After all, it probably did happen. If it was not factual, it probably was true somewhere,” (Corrigan 9). This explains why misguided people like Troilo might think that staging and fabrication are okay as long as they represent the truth. However, this mindset makes journalism inaccurate.
III. Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that Kathleen Carroll’s Oweida lecture used these two cases of inaccuracy in photojournalism well to explain the difference between truth and accuracy. In the case of Eddie Adams, the photo was truthful and newsworthy, but the subjects of the photo were represented inaccurately without further context. In the case of Giovannia Troilo, the photo represented a true aspect of life in a Belgian community, but it was inaccurate because the photo was staged for the camera. Based on these cases, capturing the truth in a photo seems to be easy, but capturing accuracy is necessary to complete the picture and is much more challenging.
Regardless of the motives of the photographers, their ethical decision making can be questioned. Adams wanted to distribute the truth, but did not take an accurate photo that would distribute the truth by itself. Troilo wanted an intimate photo that would truthfully represent life in Belgium, but he did not take an accurate photo because the situation was staged. More focus on ethical decision making would have made Adams reconsider distributing his photograph and made Troilo reconsider staging his.
IV. References
Adams, E. (1998). Eulogy: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Time. Retrieved from: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988783,00.html
Corrigan, D. (1981). The Janet Cooke Tragedy: a lesson for J-Education. Journalism Educator, 36(3), 8-10. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=935bf912-7443-43ab-be4d-27e5612c9287%40sessionmgr112&vid=36&hid=118
Donadio, R. (2015). World Press Photo Revokes Prize. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/arts/design/world-press-photo-revokes-prize.html?_r=0
Lester, P. M. (2005). On Mentors, Ethics, War, & Hurricanes. Visual Communication Quarterly, 12(3), 136-145. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=39&sid=935bf912-7443-43ab-be4d-27e5612c9287%40sessionmgr112&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=ufh&AN=75282556