Blogging for module 1: Photoshop

You'll use the links below to begin your investigation of two issues during weeks 2 and 3:

• photography and copyright
• photojournalism ethics and manipulation

At the National Press Photographers Association site, www.nppa.org, you'll find a story on the home page about the Jon-Benet Ramsey photographs that have been reproduced everywhere. This story, along with a similar story from the Poynter Institute (see second link below, or click on the Al Tompkins link at the end of the NPPA story), discusses the copyright infringement enacted by major media in the use of these photographs.

For your week 2 entry, write a simple definition of copyright (see first link below for more resources). Next, find two web-based mainstream news media stories about the Ramsey case that use photographs of her images (include links in your blog entry). What sort of attribution is used with these images--in other words, who owns the copyright of the photos used? Is a photographer, news organization, or copyright holder identified? Are the photos you found being used legally, following copyright law as you understand it in this case?

For your week 3 entry, you'll be exploring the issues of photo manipulation. Again, visit the NPPA.org web site to view its code of ethics and other discussion on this issue. Also, click on the third and fourth links below, to read discussion of how manipulation should be avoided by news producers like the Washington Post, and to read how an award-winning photographer was stripped of his awards for minor manipulations. Within the story about the photojournalist, be sure to click on a link showing the photographs, before manipulation and when published. Visit other links at Poynter that guide you to the policies at major newspapers.

For your entry, summarize briefly the major points in codes of ethics about photojournalism. Why are these guidelines important for news outlets to follow? In what way may these ethical guidelines help journalism students in other areas, namely PR and advertising? If these guidelines aren't relevant, why not?


http://nppa.org/professional_development
/business_practices/copyright.html

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=106490

http://poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=46964

http://poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=47867