[Leica] Truth in photojournalism

[LRZeitlin@aol.com]

Eric writes:

<<Your former editor was an idiot.


Journalistic photos should be just as factual as crime scene photos. 

When they start playing around with the facts, they have betrayed the 

profession and their readers. Period. End of story (and hopefully their 

jobs).>>

Eric, 

You are looking at journalism from a 21st. century, post Watergate, post 
Enron perspective. Put yourself in the frame of mind of 50 years ago, just after 
WW2. How many photos of kindly German soldiers did you see, even if they were 
carrying Leicas? How many peace loving Japanese? Journalism, photographic or 
print, always reflects the Zeitgeist. If it doesn't, it doesn't sell newspapers, 
magazines, books, or get air time.

As you well know, the media is a business and you are in competition with 
other outlets to give the public what it wants. My editor was a very decent guy 
and a Harvard graduate, to boot. But he did realize that if the buyer didn't 
grab our paper off the stands, we would all be looking for jobs. Newspapers in t
he 50s were just beginning to feel the impact of broadcast media. Remember how 
many print news and photo outlet went belly up during the coming years. 
Remember the Telegraph, the Herald Tribune, Look, Life, Colliers, Coronet, the 
Saturday Evening Post. Milton Berle,  Eric Severide and Walter Cronkhite killed 
them all. Within 10 years, every photographer I worked with, as well as most of 
the print journalists had other jobs. Some went into TV, some were in PR, a 
few became commercial photographers, but most, including me, were in other 
professions.

The journalistic standards you support hardly reflect today's media reality. 
Just look at the media lust for release of the Lacy Peterson autopsy or the 
lawsuit, supported by the NY Times, to get the Kobe Bryant transcripts. Or the 
Atlanta Journal publishing a picture of the "KISS" on the front page. Scandal 
and sensationalism sells. A media outlet that forgets it joins the Saturday 
Evening Post in thhe waste bin of history.

Incidentally - do you have your G5 on line yet?

Larry Z
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