The Ethics of Picture Editing

We spend a lot of time talking about the ethics of photojournalists in the field and in front of the computer screen. Did they manipulate the scene? The image? But there’s a whole other layer of the journalism process where ethics come into play – the editing phase.

Over at Salon.com, Justin Elliot takes a look at a front page photo from the Washington Post that has raised a lot of questions.

The decision of what to run should be based on looking at all of the available information. Does each individual piece fit into the larger story in a coherent, obvious way? Are any of the pieces you’re looking at unusual or abnormal? If so, you need to think very carefully about them and how to handle them.