Shadows on a cave wall

Let me be honest with you. I'm currently at a loss for any interesting introductory segues. In fact, I'm at a loss in regards to a number of things. Sleep first and foremost. Therefore, I shall endeavour to spare any poor soul who for some reason finds the time to read the next few paragraphs and make this as brief as possible.

My fourth JOUR1111 lecture largely followed the script of its predecessors. Until it actually began that is. For this lecture would be focusing on pictures - in particular, telling factual stories with them. This was a subject for which I was already somewhat versed in, thanks to my Visual Communication subject, which oddly enough holds its lectures in the same room. While not as in-depth as COMU1999, Dr Redman was still able to hold my attention (and everyone else's for that matter) through another useful tool - humour.

In-fact, what made the lecture worth my time was the subtle way he was able to convey his message while keeping it very much lighthearted. Perhaps it was the subject matter that made it so easy, for it WAS funny in its own right. From badly photo-shopped images of  a white man's head on a black man's body to a model with a waist so impossibly thin she would have given barbie a run for her money. Because that's what images in the media have become to some people, a way to visually communicate with an audience that, if effective, garners a far greater emotional response than text alone. But are we overdoing it?

If you are a fellow JOUR1111 student of mine, then you (should) have seen this video during the lecture. We all gasped and groaned as we watched the magic of technology drastically alter this woman's face beyond prior recognition. This video highlights a vile truth. Modern marketing has sunk so low as to alter the face of their brand to impossible extremes in order to sell a product on a buyer's presumption that the face they see is what they're buying. It is not.

An un-named freelance photographer was fired after altering the original image (right) to make it

 look as though there was more smoke rising from burning buildings following an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. 

An image released by a North Korean news agency of Kim Jong Il's funeral, in which 

a film crew was removed from the original photograph (left).

Doctored images like those shown above are an ever-common occurrence, in some cases altering how information is perceived and history recorded. Will the day come where a photograph can no longer be considered a primary source? While we accept that history is recorded by the victor, it is in images that this history is portrayed - images that, if this practice of photo editing continues, will cease to be reliable.

Now, I know I have skipped largely over the crux of Dr Redman's lecture in favour of ranting, but I believe it is important that people are aware just how deep this type of behaviour runs. Lewis H. Lapham once said, "People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true." As a budding journalist, I expect it to be true. I can't except the alternative.

Perhaps Eddie Adams got it wrong when he said "if it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that’s a good picture.” 

These pictures make me laugh.

These pictures make me cry.

These pictures rip out my heart..

... but they're not good pictures.

Collegehumour's take on doctored photos