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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Ethics question
Jan-Michael Stump, Photographer
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Traverse City | Mi | USA | Posted: 12:07 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> Help me solve a newsroom debate. A photographer is shooting a story on home loans, and goes to a bank to photograph a mortgage broker. While he's there, another staff member at the paper comes to apply for a loan. The photog didn't know that person was going to be there, and took pictures of that staffer applying for a loan. One of us says it shouldn't be used because the staffer could make it appear set-up, the other says it's fine because it was an unplanned event that just happened to involve another newspaper staffer. Would you use the picture that had the staffer in the picture and why or why not? |
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Karl Stolleis, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | | Posted: 12:18 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> No - real or not most papers, for good reason, have a prohibition against putting staffers, or staffers families in stories or photos. It gives the perception of set-up. |
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Sean D. Elliot, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Norwich | CT | USA | Posted: 1:16 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> we should avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest or a set-up regardless of how innocent it may actually be. |
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Robert Hanashiro, Photographer
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Los Angeles | CA | | Posted: 2:34 PM on 03.27.09 |
->> Sean makes a great point ... not only avoiding conflict of interest but ALSO the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest.
Journalists are only as good as their reputations. Nothing harms us more than the taint that we may have vested interest in the subjects or events that we cover. |
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John Bowersmith, Photographer
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Lubbock | Tx | USA | Posted: 2:42 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> I wouldn't use it. Most of the newspaper photogs I know will go out of their way to avoid a staffer at their paper if they see them at a scene. And many papers have policies against running photos of staffers, or interviewing them. A few places I've worked staffers were required to get special permission before being interviewed by other media outlets as well, but that may have been more for competition stuff. |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 6:32 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> Yeah, that would be a giant no-no for an editorial story. |
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Mike O'Bryon, Photographer
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Ft. Lauderdale | FL | USA | Posted: 6:52 PM on 03.27.09 |
->> Nope..
as noted... the appearance of conflict is the governing criteria here...
-- MOB |
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Nick Morris, Photographer
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San Marcos | CA | United States | Posted: 7:36 PM on 03.27.09 |
| ->> If you have to ask the answer should be hitting you in the head. |
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Jan-Michael Stump, Photographer
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Traverse City | Mi | USA | Posted: 7:58 PM on 03.30.09 |
| ->> That's what I thought, thanks guys |
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