Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. 514 Journalism: Publishing Across Media Effects Effects Sound and visual effects are available in most video editing applications, but professional journalists rarely use them and only when there is a compelling reason to do so. Audio and video effects should never be used to mislead or “trick” the viewer or to falsify a scene you recorded. Ethical Visual Journalism Ethical Visual Journalism Photo and video journalists in the age of digital photography hold unique powers and face complicated ethical decisions. Like most journalists, they consult the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, but in addition they use the National Press Photographers Association code of ethics to address issues that concern visual journalists in particular. Here are two important points from that code. Journalists are observers, not actors. They should not alter or infl uence events as they record them. This means no staged photos or recreated scenes to compensate for shots you missed. Make sure that your work accurately represents the situation and your subjects, including the context in which they appear. As you edit, do not alter your photos or video in a way that misleads the viewer. Use only editing tools that make your work as close to reality as possible. Adjusting the image for brightness or contrast, cropping, color correcting and sharpening are all generally acceptable, unless they mislead the viewer. For instance, cropping that removes an angry crowd that surrounded a violent subject could mislead the viewer to think the subject was acting alone or without provocation. It is not ethical to remove distracting elements from within the frame or fl ip or merge photos. The resulting image is not an accurate nor a true representation of what the journalist saw. In addition, visual journalists, like all other journalists, should take special care with subjects who may be young, vulnerable or who may be victims. Online Multimedia Online Multimedia The modern journalist is becoming a master of many forms of storytelling. Veteran video journalist Michael Rosenblum predicted in 2010 that the future of journalism was ”backpack journalism.” The new journalist, Rosenblum and many others say, is fl uent with photo, video, audio and text using high-powered devices they carry around with them in the fi eld. The best journalists, then, are not print or video or online journalists. They are all of the above, profi cient storytellers across all media. The Internet has given journalists lower-cost to publish and almost infi nite space for their stories compared to the print, radio or TV journalism of a few decades earlier. It has led old-school print publications, like The New York Times, to rethink visual and audio communication. Instead of one photo that is run on top of one story in the print edition, they now can run galleries of photos, a video or both online. Audio tracks narrate visuals. Instead of static graphics and alternative story forms run as part of print stories, they can invite their