Interesting article today about photojournalism, but I think it also
applies to video as well. I always think about criminal cases, when
does someone alter a digital photo to achive their desired results?
This is the stuff that scares me about technology, especiality
digital tech....

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152989

When a mysterious creature washed up on the shores of Montauk, N.Y.,
in late July, it became an instant media sensation. After the
photograph of the Montauk Monster ran on Manhattan media blog Gawker,
local Long Island newspapers were on the story. CNN and Fox News
quickly followed, hosting experts to hash out what exactly this
unrecognizeable being was. Perhaps a bloated raccoon, as Discover
Magazine claimed and Jeff Corwin told Fox? A dead dog that had
decayed for weeks? Or, the latest spin: The creature was simply fake,
a prop in a movie's viral marketing campaign, and the media had been
duped.

The public's skepticism over whether or not they can believe what
they see in photographs isn't unwarranted. Just last week, Beijing
organizers admitted to using "previously recorded footage" and
computerized images during the Olympic opening ceremony to enhance
the quality of fireworks for broadcast on television. A month before
that, a doctored photograph of Iranian missiles turned up on front
pages across the globe. The alteration—an extra missile added to the
image—was outed within hours of the photograph's publication. "With
technology, you can make the moment anything you want it to be," says
John Long, the ethics committee chair for the National Press
Photographers Association. "Our credibility has been stretched in so
many ways, so I don't think the public has a great deal of faith in
us." He admits the past year hasn't been the best for
photojournalism's credibility but doesn't think the future is
particularly gloomy—it just puts the burden on the photojournalist to
tell the truth, rather than on the photograph itself. "Just like we
trust the reporter to represent what they see accurately, we're going
to have to develop that same relationship with photographers," he
says. NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff spoke with Long about why the
credibility of photojournalism has fallen, whether or not doctored
photographs are more likely to get caught these days, and how
photographers can reclaim the public's trust. Excerpts:

for the rest of the article follow the link
http://www.newsweek.com/id/152989

Heath
http://batmangeek.com
http://heathparks.com