Reuters Photoshop Guidelines

[David_Buzzard]

I'm not saying it was right, I just wish that these guys could be cut a little more slack. My experience with other journalistic mediums is that they bend and twist the truth all the time, and that's just considered how they do business.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[Richard_Coyle]

Dave
As I've told my kids and employees over the years, the saying of "it's a slippery slope" is true, once you start to make exceptions to the rules, or to use your words, bend or twist the truth, particularly to the public. Look at all the "mia culpas" out there today. With everyone looking over everyone elses shoulder, you never know when you'll be caught telling that little white lie, or with that indiscretion. I've found in my own life (through trial and error, I might add!) it's so much easier to just do it right, or tell the truth, the first time, then it doesn't come back to haunt me later, and I can sleep at night.

[Ray Kemp]

Actually I thought the Reuters guidelines weren't to far from the requirements that a couple of newspapers that I string for in the St. Louis area as well as some magazines in California have. They too (as I later learned) have fairly strict editing guidelines.

A couple of years ago, I responded to head-on collision that killed a 16 year old boy. During the collision he was ejected and caught up under the car as it spun around. EMS quickly evacuated him to the hospital where he later died.

I photographed the demolished car with fire/rescue picking up their gear from the scene and returned to my office to send the images to my editor. While I was working up the images I could clearly see a large pool of blood on the road next to his car. I also learned the boy was a student at the local high school and already his friends were setting up vigils at the scene.

For the sake of limiting a spectacle with my image, since this was now what I considered a high profile accident, I decided to clone out the blood and I informed my editor of my image edit and sent him both versions edited and original. I asked that only the cloned version be considered for publication.

My editor called back and informed me they were going to publish the image but could not accept it with cloned content. I expressed my concerns about the blood and that it may cause problems for me since the incident is right in my neighborhood, so I declined to sell the image to my editor's dissapointment.

He then called back and asked me to take a look at the image that was being sent back to me via email. What was originally intended for a color publication was now changed to black and white and the pool of blood looked like a puddle of water on the roadway. I cheerfully granted the use of my image and never experienced any fallout from the image when it was published.

I've never cloned edited another image since for I'm a little more careful as to my angles, etc. to insure nothing undesirable appears in the image. It's either that or I can't get published.

Ray

[Richard_Coyle]

Ray
Your experience echos my concerns/approach to the issue. Thanks.

[David_Buzzard]

You can't sanitize a news photograph because it's too graphic. If it's too much for the community or the paper (I've had lots of photos not run because of that), then don't run the photo.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[Ray Kemp]

I agree David and my experience that I discribed earlier was a learning one for me. I'd rather be published than not, so on the "bad stuff" I just work around the gore the best I can and yet still provide an image that works with the story. So far, none have been rejected.

Ray