3 September 1998 Edition
WYSIWYG... not!
By Eoghan Mac Cormaic
In George Orwell's novel 1984 the art of rewriting newspaper stories and of falsifying photographs for political reasons provided one of the most prophetic and enduring images of totalitarianism.
Some critics point to Stalin as the source for most of Orwell's imagery; infamously doctored photographs removed opponents and created non-persons... It was all in there. For most of us, however, the novel remained in the realm of fiction and the nearest anyone could get to editing a picture was the famous `airbrush' or a pair of scissors. All has changed, changed utterly however, with the advent of new technology. And let's be honest, while all this has a down side, there's also an up side to it. It's only a matter of application.
I'm impressed to see that the Press Council - the British one, that is - is considering introducing new standards to ensure that in future photographs which have been edited are marked in some way. This should alert readers to the fact that what they see is not what the camera saw. It's not that the camera lies, it's more that the camera's product is... enhanced. The reason for the new ruling stems from the increasing habit of newspapers editing images. What You See Is What You Get is no more.
Examples abound, some understandable, some not. When the Quinn children were burned to death during the Drumcree siege this year most newspapers carried a front page image of three brothers in a studio shot. Some papers carried the same picture with the fourth and only surviving brother standing behind the three victims. No explanation was offered by the papers who had removed the older brother as to why his image had been edited out, but in time of tragedy it was probable that the newspapers wanted to report the story in a particular way and the poignancy of three brothers in one photograph, all dead, could not have been stronger.
Less forgivable however, is the practice of editing out `undesirable' images. The Sun, that pillar of truth and fair reporting in Britain was recently taken to task for `image editing'. Publishing a shot of members of the England cricket celebrating a victory - a rare image - the Sun photo editors neatly removed a disabled woman from the image. They claim she was removed to make room for a headline which was then not used but we're left to wonder was it actually the woman or her disability which offended the editors. The effect was the same: a sanitised image of the crowd was presented.
What all this means to the public at large is debatable since most people are indifferent in any case to the diet of lies and half truths which many newspapers serve up on a daily basis. The only difference now is in the medium. Until now the papers, by and large, have been restricted to the printed word in their inventiveness. New technology allows now for altering photographs in a way that deceives more effectively, more subtly, than an exaggerated story or an imaginary event could ever hope to deceive. And while Republicans were excluded physically from events for many years, now an editor can exclude an individual - Republican, let's say - from a group photograph.
That's the down side. The upside is that - as the creators of the Six Million Dollar Man once said - we have the technology. Indeed we do. And if we have it, we should use it, that's my motto. I can't understand all this fuss about not seeing a certain pair of hands shaking. Five minutes on the computer would sort that out. Beware David. We have ways of making you shake.
In George Orwell's novel 1984 the art of rewriting newspaper stories and of falsifying photographs for political reasons provided one of the most prophetic and enduring images of totalitarianism.
Some critics point to Stalin as the source for most of Orwell's imagery; infamously doctored photographs removed opponents and created non-persons... It was all in there. For most of us, however, the novel remained in the realm of fiction and the nearest anyone could get to editing a picture was the famous `airbrush' or a pair of scissors. All has changed, changed utterly however, with the advent of new technology. And let's be honest, while all this has a down side, there's also an up side to it. It's only a matter of application.
I'm impressed to see that the Press Council - the British one, that is - is considering introducing new standards to ensure that in future photographs which have been edited are marked in some way. This should alert readers to the fact that what they see is not what the camera saw. It's not that the camera lies, it's more that the camera's product is... enhanced. The reason for the new ruling stems from the increasing habit of newspapers editing images. What You See Is What You Get is no more.
Examples abound, some understandable, some not. When the Quinn children were burned to death during the Drumcree siege this year most newspapers carried a front page image of three brothers in a studio shot. Some papers carried the same picture with the fourth and only surviving brother standing behind the three victims. No explanation was offered by the papers who had removed the older brother as to why his image had been edited out, but in time of tragedy it was probable that the newspapers wanted to report the story in a particular way and the poignancy of three brothers in one photograph, all dead, could not have been stronger.
Less forgivable however, is the practice of editing out `undesirable' images. The Sun, that pillar of truth and fair reporting in Britain was recently taken to task for `image editing'. Publishing a shot of members of the England cricket celebrating a victory - a rare image - the Sun photo editors neatly removed a disabled woman from the image. They claim she was removed to make room for a headline which was then not used but we're left to wonder was it actually the woman or her disability which offended the editors. The effect was the same: a sanitised image of the crowd was presented.
What all this means to the public at large is debatable since most people are indifferent in any case to the diet of lies and half truths which many newspapers serve up on a daily basis. The only difference now is in the medium. Until now the papers, by and large, have been restricted to the printed word in their inventiveness. New technology allows now for altering photographs in a way that deceives more effectively, more subtly, than an exaggerated story or an imaginary event could ever hope to deceive. And while Republicans were excluded physically from events for many years, now an editor can exclude an individual - Republican, let's say - from a group photograph.
That's the down side. The upside is that - as the creators of the Six Million Dollar Man once said - we have the technology. Indeed we do. And if we have it, we should use it, that's my motto. I can't understand all this fuss about not seeing a certain pair of hands shaking. Five minutes on the computer would sort that out. Beware David. We have ways of making you shake.