By electronically doctoring a sign in Times Square, the network compromised the public's trust by Tom Wheeler D uring a New Year's broadcast covering festivities in Times Square, CBS News superimposed its digitally created logo over a sign sponsored by rival NBC, raising eyebrows among journalists and viewers alike. The incident was one of many in recent years in which fictionalized photos or broadcast images appeared without disclosure in purportedly nonfiction viewing environments. Many steps of the process entail some measure of subjectivity, and besides, photos were faked long before the digital revolution.
Software makes photo doctoring easier, cheaper and more accessible.
As graphics software programs multiply, opportunities for fictionalizing images become more tempting. Some would even say that photojournalism is doomed. People do not trust any image, and rightly so. I hope these assessments are wrong, for what a loss it would be if a medium that has enriched countless lives were to lose its credibility as a compelling reflection of reality and be relegated to cartoon status. Faith in photography's authenticity is almost as old as photography itself and is grounded in chemical and mechanical aspects that seemed to impart intrinsic objectivity, readers' long exposure to responsible photojournalism, and average citizens' dependence on snapshots as documentation of our own lives.