by Tom Wheeler

During 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. What will be the effect of this increasingly common practice upon the credibility of visual journalism?

Some observers, unruffled, point out that photography itself is an inherent manipulation—a manipulation of light. Many steps of the process entail some measure of subjectivity, and besides, photos were faked long before the digital revolution.

Still, the observation that “there’s nothing new about manipulating photos” isn’t quite right. Software makes photo doctoring easier, cheaper and more accessible. Decisions about “processing” versus “manipulating” images are often made not by experienced professionals but by computer artists with little grounding in ethics. As graphics software programs multiply, opportunities for fictionalizing images become more tempting. One result, as the editors of American Photo claimed, is that, “the objective ‘truth’ of photographs has become something of a quaint concept.”

Some would even say that photojournalism is doomed. Former National Press Photographers president John Long: “The war is over and we have lost …. People do not trust any image, and rightly so.” New York Times critic Andy Grunberg: “In the future, readers of newspapers and magazines will probably view news pictures more as illustrations … since they can no longer distinguish between a genuine image and one that has been manipulated.” 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. Most of us carry in our memories certain mass-media images—some poignant, some horrific—that have influenced how we perceive ourselves, our world.

If journalists are to save what remains of the credibility of nonfiction visual media, we can no longer afford to ask, “Given public faith in photography, what must we do to avoid betraying that faith?” Instead: “Given well-founded skepticism of mass media in general and published imagery in particular, how can we demonstrate that some images can still be believed?”

Communicators who wish to construct a fortress of credibility around one class of still or moving images will have to rethink old assumptions about formulating ethical codes. For example, distinctions between newspapers, magazines, etc. have begun to outlive their usefulness. In an age when the forms and structures of communication diverge and recombine into innumerable permutations, why should the particulars of ethical codes turn on details such as paper stock, binding methods, or publication frequency? It makes more sense to examine each medium’s substance, its context, and especially its implications of veracity.

CBS executives should be ashamed of themselves. Every time news broadcasters or nonfiction publishers are caught using manipulated images that violate the reasonable expectations of viewers, they are teaching them not to trust what they see in mass media. Given that journalism’s credibility is already on the ropes, professionals should be doing everything they can to regain public trust rather than squandering what little trust remains.

In even nominally journalistic contexts, if the fictional aspects of our images are neither immediately obvious nor appropriately disclosed, then we have lied to our viewers, and we take the same risks all liars take.

Whether the medium is print or television, the promise of a legitimate nonfiction image (as opposed to art, advertising, etc.) is that it fulfills its implied authenticity; it means what it says. The survival of visual media’s credibility depends on whether we make good on that promise. In that regard, not much has changed since the rise of photojournalism decades ago. The ultimate test, as before, is a standard of perception as well as honesty: Do our viewers think we are truthful? Are they right?

—This article originally appeared in The Oregonian. Tom Wheeler’s book Phototruth or Photofiction? Ethics and Media Imagery in the Digital Age, will be published later this year.