Ethics Matters: Why Reuters’ New Photo Policy is a Raw Deal

Ethics Matters: Why Reuters’ New Photo Policy is a Raw Deal

In photojournalism, it’s getting harder and harder to believe everything you see.

Of course, you know where I’m going with this: Photoshop. It and and other imaging programs make it easy to alter an image. Brighten a key element to draw attention to it. Darken a distracting element to strengthen the photo’s message. Or, heck, just lie through your teeth and create elements that weren’t even there to begin with. 

None of this is new. What is new is a policy announced by the Reuters news agency this week. Reuters Pictures is now forbidding its freelance photographers to submit images that were originally shot in the so-called “raw” format. In a statement to the photography site PetaPixel, Reuters said, “While we aim for photography of the highest aesthetic quality, our goal is not to artistically interpret the news.”

That goal is at the core of ethical photojournalism, but is banning a file format the way to get there? Not so much.

Why Reuters Rejects Raw

The reason Reuters is banishing raw-format photos is because this format provides a lot more post-processing flexibility in programs like Photoshop and Lightroom—it enables a photographer to make more dramatic adjustments in color balance, exposure, and shadow and highlight details.

That’s because a raw photo preserves every bit of data that a camera’s sensor records. By comparison, the JPEG format—the format Reuters now mandates—is a “lossy” format: it sacrifices quality in order to create a smaller, more compact file.

When a camera records a JPEG image, it discards roughly two thirds of the data that the sensor captured. Because a JPEG image contains less data, it offers less latitude for adjustments. Make a dramatic adjustment to a JPEG’s color balance or exposure, and you’ll probably introduce obvious flaws that scream, “This photo was heavily Photoshopped.”

And that’s why Reuters is banning raw. By putting photographers on JPEG’s shorter leash, Reuters figures it will reduce the chances that they’ll cheat. 

But as any dog owner knows, a short leash is no guarantee that a dog won’t get into trouble. A JPEG photo may not provide as much adjustment latitude as its raw equivalent, but it can still be altered.

In this ten-minute documentary that we at Lynda.com published earlier this year, several prominent photojournalists weighed in on the ethics of photojournalism in the digital age. Photographer Ami Vitale describes the photo policy at National Geographic: “They will look at your whole take—they want to know how you got to that [final] image.” That seems like a better policy than “thou shalt shoot JPEG.”

 

The Ethics and Hard Work Format

Every news photo, like every news article, is framed through the eyes and mind of its creator. News photographers can downplay something in a scene by simply not including it in the frame. Or they can make a small protest seem like a big one by getting in close, getting down on the ground, and shooting upward to make a handful of protestors look like a menacing mob.

No, the key to credible photojournalism isn’t banning a file format. It’s teaching, over and over again, that ethics matter. That your job is to tell a story with as much objectivity as we inherently subjective human beings can muster. That cheating may yield a temporary high, but it’s a losing strategy in the long run. And that news photos don’t have to be Photoshopped to be “beautiful.”

As Ami Vitale says in our documentary, “You can create beautiful images simply by doing the hard work of getting up early and spending time on a story so that you get these authentic moments that don’t have to be manufactured.”

A file format has nothing to do with that.

 

Photo: Wikimedia, licensed through Creative Commons.

Of course this doesn't prevent images being captured raw, altered, then submitted as jpgs. What it's about, like so much else in the artist/corporate relationship, is not integrity; it's about liability. If Reuters insists on receiving jpgs, then if an image is altered while raw in some significant (and actionable) way, it was the artist's doing and they can wash their hands of the consequences.

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Donald Young

Quality Assurance/Quality Control | Documentation Specialist | Employee Trainer | Internal Auditor | Parts Inspection

8y

Some of the greats pictures in history were not altered in any way. Why do it now? Oh yes... that's right... yellow journalism.

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Lori Morrow

Communication Professional | Photographer

8y

This is short-sighted and really shows how ignorant Reuters is when it comes to professional photography and photojournalism. It's also entirely backwards. Requiring the RAW file would show that no editing had been done but would still allow for professional editors (if they even have any there) to adjust exposure; requiring jpg is just... dumb.

Tony Isaac

Sr. Engineering Manager at TCP Software

8y

Oh no, the sky is falling! Reuters is trying to stop photographers from altering their images! OK, so you argue that requiring JPEG won't really help, but you didn't make a case for why it's so important to allow RAW. First world problems, I guess.

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Elizabeth Szell, PMP ®

Project Management | Cost Controller | Joint Venture Accountant | Business Analyst

8y

powerful editorial about having authentic photo journalism

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