ED477610 2003-12-00 The Evolving

Status of Photojournalism Education.

ERIC Digest.

ERIC Development Team

www.eric.ed.gov

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The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest......... 1

WHAT IS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY?......................................2

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY?............. 2

HOW HAS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGED

PHOTOJOURNALISM?.................................................. 2

HOW HAS IT CHANGED PHOTOJOURNALISM EDUCATION?...... 4

WHAT ARE THE ETHICAL ISSUES IN DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY?. 4

REFERENCES.................................................................. 5

ERIC Identifier: ED477610

Publication Date: 2003-12-00

Author: Cookman, Claude

Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading English and Communication Bloomington IN.

The Evolving Status of Photojournalism

Education. ERIC Digest.

THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

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ED477610 2003-12-00 The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest. Page 1 of 6
New technologies are resulting in extensive changes in the field of photojournalism,

both as it is practiced and taught. This Digest will review this rapidly evolving field of

education and professional practice.

WHAT IS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY?

Traditional photography utilizes negative film and positive prints that hold the image in

an emulsion of silver for black and white or dyes for color. Light reflected from the

subject activates the silver or dyes, forming a latent, invisible image. It is made visible to

the human eye by development in a series of chemical baths. These analog images

present a continuous tone.

Digital photography records light impulses as electronic charges stored on a computer

hard drive or memory disk. The image is a matrix of rows and columns. Where they

intersect are small squares called picture elements, or pixels, which carry information

about brightness and color. A digital image is discontinuous. Each pixel is separate from

its neighbors. Typically the resolution, or number of pixels per inch, is so large that the

human eye synthesizes them into an image that appears continuous. But when

enlarged sufficiently, the matrix of squares becomes visible. As with all computerized

technology, at the most basic level the information in each pixel comprises electronic

pulses expressed as a series of 0's and 1's. Digital photographs can undergo the same

operations as all computer files, including being edited, stored, copied, transformed into

a variety of formats, transmitted over the Internet, deleted, etc. (Corbett, 2002)

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF DIGITAL

PHOTOGRAPHY?

The development of digital photography occurred in two distinct phases: the digitized

image preceded the digital camera. Digital photography had its origins in the 1960s as

NASA scientists developed a method for the Voyager space probes to send images

back to Earth. Instead of continuous prints, the images were scanned into digital

information and transmitted back as electronic signals. For several years, digital

photography was limited to scanning analog prints or negatives into pixel files. When

Sony introduced the first digital camera, called the Mavica, in 1981, the scanning step

could be eliminated. It was possible to produce digital photographs directly with a

camera (Wilson, n. d.). As with most computer technology, development of digital

cameras proceeded rapidly; as speed and quality increased, costs fell. Beginning in the

early 1990s, photojournalists became the first major group of photographers to use

digital cameras extensively.

HOW HAS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGED

PHOTOJOURNALISM?

Digital technologies have greatly changed the working methods for photojournalists on

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Page 2 of 6 ED477610 2003-12-00 The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest.
assignment and brought major operational and economic advantages to news

organizations. In traditional photography, photographers could not be sure of what they

had until they processed their film. Digital cameras have display screens that allow

photojournalists to review what they have shot while still covering an event. They can

decide whether they have the story-telling photographs or need to continue shooting.

They can delete inadequate pictures and try them again. They can fill gaps in the visual

narrative.

Two major changes serve both photojournalists and their news organizations.

Considerable time is saved by eliminating the darkroom phase of traditional

photography. Time formerly required to process film, make prints and send those prints

through the engraving process can now be spent covering the event. By one

photographer's account, at least 25 minutes is saved by eliminating chemical

processing. (Kobre, 1996) Much time is also saved on the logistics of getting the images

back to the publication. Instead of driving back to the office, photographers can plug the

camera's memory cards into their laptop computers, select and caption the images and

transmit them by cell phone back to their publication's picture desk. This logistical

advantage can work from the football stadium across town or from a news event in a

foreign country. It is particularly advantageous when covering events close to deadline.

Conversion to digital has brought many economic advantages to news organizations.

Substantial savings result from converting from a wet-chemistry darkroom to a digital

operation. They include the costs of film, photographic paper and chemistry, which are

no longer needed. A roll of film, for example, can only be used once, but a computer

chip can be erased and reused continually. Another savings is the overhead cost of

maintaining the darkroom itself which typically consumed sizeable space. There are

savings from not having to dispose of dangerous chemicals, which is also a plus for the

environment. Although considerable investment is required for digital cameras and the

computer hardware, software and storage space required for a digital photographic

system, the conversion brings a net savings.

Perhaps the greatest advantage to the organization is an operational one. Concurrent

with the development of digital photography, newspapers and magazines transformed

their printing process from the traditional system where printers composed pages in a

backshop to one where editors and designers produced pages on computers in the

newsroom. This computerized pagination requires computer-compatible images. Many

publications also have Online editions, and digital photographs meld smoothly into the

production of these World Wide Web sites. Online editions offer a major advantage to

photojournalists who can get more of their work published and have it available to the

public for a longer time. Newsprint is expensive, and space for photographs is limited.

There are no comparable limitations on displaying several images from a news event or

an enterprise project on the Web, and they can remain Online as long as the publication

chooses to archive them. Many newspapers, notably The Washington Post, have

Website branches that showcase the work of their photojournalists.

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ED477610 2003-12-00 The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest. Page 3 of 6
HOW HAS IT CHANGED PHOTOJOURNALISM

EDUCATION?

Journalism education has followed rather than led the transition to digital

photojournalism. As the industry moved increasingly to digital technologies, schools and

departments of journalism eventually followed in order to prepare their majors for

internships and jobs in the profession. Again this was a two stage process; scanning

and the electronic darkroom entered the curriculum in the early to mid 1990s, while

schools retained traditional cameras and darkrooms. Typically, student photojournalists

would shoot and process film, then scan negatives. As the price of digital cameras

dropped and the quality and capacities increased, many schools of journalism invested

in digital cameras and auxiliary equipment, and made the transition from wet-chemistry

darkrooms to computer labs in the late 1990s and early 21st century. Many student

photojournalists work for college/university newspapers, so the same advantages in

terms of deadlines and logistics apply to them as to the professionals. The cost and

organization advantages apply to the publishers of student print media.

Regarding teaching the skills and technology required: While complex, most digital

cameras can be learned in one or two sessions and mastered with repeated use.

Somewhat more time and instruction is required for learning digital editing software

such as Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard image manipulation program. Most

photojournalism instructors devote a few class sessions to a Photoshop orientation,

then expect the students to become proficient as they use the software for the rest of

the semester.

Digital photography has not altered the most important aspects of photojournalism

pedagogy including instilling the ethics and values of the profession, the formal

aesthetics of photography, how to think visually and journalistically, how to work various

kinds of assignments, etc.

WHAT ARE THE ETHICAL ISSUES IN DIGITAL

PHOTOGRAPHY?

Historically, photographs have been altered by the tabloid press by cutting and pasting

together prints or combining several negatives on a single print. Often the seams were

concealed by painting with airbrushes. A trained eye could spot such manipulations, but

with the advent of digital photography it became possible to manipulate images so

subtly that the changes were undetectable. Content could be added, deleted or moved

around inside the image. Several notorious cases of such manipulation occurred,

particularly in the magazine industry. Leaders in photojournalism saw this new capability

for seamless manipulation as a threat to the credibility of the photographic image and

thus to the profession itself and reacted.

The National Press Photographers Association, the professional organization for still

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and video photographers, responded by prominently publicizing cases of manipulation

in its News Photographer Magazine and by adding to its code of ethics a strong

prohibition against digital manipulation. It now reads:

"As journalists, we believe that credibility is our greatest asset. In documentary

photojournalism, it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way

(electronically or in the darkroom) that deceives the public. We believe the guidelines for

fair and accurate reporting should be the criteria for judging what may be done

electronically to a photograph." (NPPA, 1999)

In practice, most news organizations relax this stricture. Magazines which consider their

covers as an essential element in newsstand marketing routinely alter or enhance cover

images. Many newspapers have one standard for the news and sports sections and

another for feature sections. Because digital photography has made it very easy to

produce conceptual illustrations, many news organizations do publish them. It is

considered essential to label such images as illustrations, with the expectation that the

readers will not take them literally.

It seems safe to predict that the future of photojournalism will continue to follow

technological developments in digital photography. While there may be a few scattered

news operations that the revolution has not yet touched, the profession has undergone

a technological transformation.

REFERENCES

Corbett, B. (2002). "A Simple guide to digital photography". New York: Amphoto Books.

Kobre, K. (1996). (3rd Ed.). "Photojournalism: The professional's approach". Boston:

Focal Press.

National Press Photographer Association. (1999). "National Press Photographers

Association Code of Ethics". Retrieved December 8, 2003, from

http://www.asne.org/ideas/codes/nppa.htm

Wilson, S. (n.d.). "Say cheese! A snapshot of digital photography". Retrieved December

8, 2003, from http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/smwilson/ cei511/Smile.htm

----- Digest #184 EDO-CS-03-05 was published in December 2003 by the ERIC

Clearinghouse on Reading, English & Communication, 2805 E 10th St. #140,

Bloomington, IN 47408. ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely

reproduced.

This project is funded at least in part with Federal funds from the US Dept. of Education

under contract number ED-99-CO-0028. The content of this publication does not

necessarily reflect the views or policies of the US Department of Education nor does

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ED477610 2003-12-00 The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest. Page 5 of 6
mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by

the US Government.

Title: The Evolving Status of Photojournalism Education. ERIC Digest.

Note: ERIC/REC Digest number 184.

Document Type: Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs)

(071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073);

Available From: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication, 2805

E. 10th St. #140, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698. Web site: http://eric.indiana.edu; Tel:

800-759-4723 (Toll Free).

Descriptors: Ethics, Journalism Education, Literature Reviews, Photography,

Photojournalism, Secondary Education

Identifiers: Digital Photography, ERIC Digests

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