Ethics Blog 5

One thing this chapter talks about is the increase in citizen photojournalism. Today, basically everyone has access to a camera in their phone, and there are an increasingly large number of mediums to share their photos and videos. It is important to ensure that the source you get your information from is correct, unbiased as possible, and current, which means not all homebrew journalism can be trusted. However, thanks to however many thousands of sources there are, it can be easy enough to get a clear picture of whatever is going on in the world assuming that you don’t only check one source.

As the book puts, instant access to a camera has aided our lives in several ways, for example the subway bombing in London. Through amateur photography police were able to identify the perpetrators of the attack. However, as events like the attacks on September 11th showed us, sometimes photography can be controversial or even harmful. On the whole, I believe it to be a net positive to our society.

Regardless of help or harm however, photos can be doctored or taken out of context to promote certain agendas in media. Ethically, photojournalists should do their best to ensure that their work is as true as possible, but there will still always be room for interpretation in photographs and art in general. It is the duty of the journalist, news station, newspaper, or simple blogger to make sure their work is not being used maliciously. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, these days everyone has easy access to a camera. That means that, while I believe the majority of people have good intentions with their little gallery or stage for their work, there will always be those who take photos and with the intent of manipulation and disinformation.