We don't hear many complaints about staged photographs -- fabrications that are OK for product shots, photo illustrations and other non-breaking situations. But if a news photo has been set up to, say, replicate a development and readers aren't told, what they're looking at is a staged image that's as much a lie as fabricated text.
The issue came up in the Star-Telegram this morning in letters to the editor. In the package's last letter, reader Robert J. Wershay complains that he suspects a news photo he'd seen recently in the paper was staged. I don't know whether it was, but I doubt it. The photojournalist ranks at the paper may have been thinned because of buyouts, but I can attest that those who remain are committed to ethical practice.
As the National Press Photographers Association's Code of Ethics states:
"1. Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
"2. Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities." (Emphasis mine.)
The code goes on to set down positions on other practices, all of which underscore the need to preserve photojournalists' credibility. We seldom hear about NPPA's Code of Ethics. It's good to have reason to mention it.
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