Orthodox Jewish newspaper, Di Tzeitung, had digitally deleted US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, from a photograph of her, Barack Obama and his team observing the Navy Seals raid that took away Osama bin Laden’s life. The paper has since garnered many negative comments and has since apologized for editing the photograph and proceeded to publish it.
Original photo of the meeting.
Edited copy of the photo that was published. Notice the empty spot that Clinton was in at the original photo.
According to the publisher, images of women are not published due to the Jewish laws of modesty to women. In contrast, the public who have read the paper are in the opinion that this is an act of discrimination.
Realistically based on cultural context, there is no strong stand on the right and wrong of the deletion of the photo. The judgement is simple : it is only right to remove the images of these women due to respect in the Jewish context. Meanwhile to the public American eye, it is crucial that women and men are treated with the same rights - and in this context which is to be featured as part of the political team (Morse, J 2007). Meanwhile, Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) opines that each subject has a different social evaluation in different social contexts. Hence, it is not for one to judge if the deletion of Clinton's image was right or wrong.
Bringing the cultural ethics aside, let's now look at the ethical publishing principles to justify the ethicality of DI Tzeitung's act. According to the National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics (2011), photojournalists are not supposed to edit the images in any way that can mislead the audience or misrepresent the subject
Personally, I would not encourage the act of editing the photos in any way as journalists are supposed to report objectively and always report things as it is (SCPJ 2011). Finally, here's a video for you to look at what Conan O' Brien has to say about the issue? What is your opinion?
(From youtube.com)
Reference :-
Kress, G and van Leeuwen, T 2006, ‘The semiotic landscape : language and visual communication’. Reading Images, pg. 35 -41
Morse, J 2007, online, viewed 14th November 2011 from http://www.america.gov/st/diversity-english/2007/February/20070226171718ajesrom0.6366846.html
National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics 2011, online, viewed 14th November 2011 from http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics.html
SCPJ 2011, Society of Proffesional Journalists, online, viewed 14th November 2011 from
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
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