Chapter Seven

The Ethics of Photojournalism

Photo By: Nahiomy Martinez

In the image above, is what I drew to be my personal ethics. The six principles into reaching my personal ethics/values, they are; Truth, Honestly, Caring, Companionship, and lastly, Self Worth (me). Within each of the main principles there are two words describing how I will reach my ethics. To further explain, in order to receive and give "TRUTH" I will focus on my leadership and guidance. With "HONESTY" I will focus in trust and faithfulness, "CARING" will focus on kindness and empathy, "COMPANIONSHIP" will focus on my appearance and my knowledge, and lastly, Me, "SELF WORTH" will focus on my own personal trust and fairness. In my opinion, these all focus on my personal ethics in all for example, it covers my business ethics, my ethics for family, etc... The words on the petals will strive me to move towards my ethics.

Photo By: Charles Porter

In the image above, I choose this picture because it's showing professional ethics. The definition of Professional Ethics is, Professional ethics are principles that govern the behaviour of a person or group in a business environment. Like values, professional ethics provide rules on how a person should act towards other people and institutions in such an environment. This firefighter is showing respect and accountability. It's a firefighters job to rescue, and respond to fires and accidents.  Why do I believe this? Well, in the article 'I struggled a long time': Oklahoma City firefighter in iconic photo retires', Pawlowski states, The firefighter who tenderly cradled a baby girl killed in the Oklahoma City bombing is ending his tour of duty. The male firefighter does not show his own sad personal emotions towards holding a dead baby. For example, to understand what I am trying to say, there are many people who don't know how to act professional in tragic situations. Yes, this of course hurts and is very tragic but he is showing respect by still cradling a child and not just holding it like a toy. He walks out and holds the child and still looks at it with respect. With situations like this, it affects peoples life. In the article, Pawlowski states, It took counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder and years to process the events, but Fields says he’s finally in a good place.


Now, we can talk about ethics that are being broken. For example, HONESTY. Many photographers are editing their images were it changes the real meaning behind certain images. In the article, Documenting Tragedy: The Ethics of Photojournalism, Folkenflik the media correspondent NPR talks about an image that was taken, "The New York Post published this chilling image on its cover. The photo shows a man in the path of an oncoming train with the headline: "Doomed: Pushed on the Subway Track, This Man is About to Die." The entire horrifying episode has sparked a conversation about how we capture and share images of tragedy. In the conversation Folkenflik states, The person identified by police as Davis pushed the man, and he tumbled into, you know, the tracks themselves. He, as the photograph showed that you described, is literally trying to get himself back up onto the platform and cannot do it. And the train strikes and kills him. Onlookers pull him back up afterward. Could they have done more and also whether the photographer himself should have done more rather than trying to take that picture. This shows a breaking in the trust and honesty ethics. For a photographer to not be trustworthy and capture an image instead of helping a person is very un-honest. You can't trust a person like this. They would rather watch a person get hurt instead of helping. It does not matter if you can't make it, at least you know they tried. But for a person not to try and help someone out, it's a photographer I will not trust. This can change a story because say if the photographer was to lie about the situation in the image, it will spread different rumors to what happened in the image.

Photo By: Nathan Weber

Once I saw this image, I was so heartbroken. In my opinion, these are photographers who are not professional at all.  They don't have fairness and respect. For someone to see a young girl laying on the floor, the least they can do is call for an ambulance, look for help, try to get this young girl up from the floor. Instead, these photographers are taking images of the girl and looking at her like she's a piece of artwork. In the article, Is This Photo Ethical?, you should click the link and take a look at all the different images. At the end of the article, you can see two images. These two images are both different. For the images that were captured to be different shows that you cannot trust all photographers.