You removed THE HILLARY CLINTON from the newspaper ?!

Is news really all that reliable and trustworthy? How sure can we be that what is presented to us is true?

The article by The Guardian examines the issue of a picture which have been altered and published to the public by Di Tzeitung, an Orthodox Jewish newspaper (2011). The paper removed the image of the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason from the picture, explaining that it was immodest of their culture to publish images of females to the public (The Guardian, 2011). After reading the article, I would have to say that we cannot rely on the media entirely as they practice picture manipulation.

The following is the original picture:

Source: The Guardian

The following is the altered picture:

The Source: The Guardian

My thesis can be related to the principle of picture manipulations in the media. Professor Paul Martin Lester mention in a chapter of his book that picture manipulations have been a part of photography ever since it was introduced to the public (Lester 1995). It has even been practiced during the period in which the First World War took place, primarily for propaganda purposes (Lester 1988). 

Technology in today's society. 

In today’s society, picture manipulations have gone to a whole new level as we have all the convenient computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop to aid us in doing so (Lester 1995). Although photojournalism has a tendency to reveal truth in the pictures, more photojournalists are manipulating pictures to create an illusion in the public’s mind.

My thesis can also be explained using the principle of distrust in the media. Adrian Monck reminds the public that the media business primarily aims to grad the public’s attention, thus making it a very competitive business which may explain why both journalists and photojournalists may exaggerate their work in hopes that it will only be able to grab the public’s attention (2008). In an article by The New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena found a survey concluding that the public’s trust in the media has increasingly declined as the public are finding reporting as biased and inaccurate (2009). 

A survey of 1,506 people revealed that 63% of the public view newspaper articles as inaccurate and often favored one side or the other (Perez-Pena, 2009). Thus, with principles regarding the rise in the practice of picture manipulations and distrust in media, my thesis is proven; that the media should not be relied on too much.


To read the original newspaper article on the topic, click here.




Reference List:


Lester, P 1995, Photojournalism Ethics Timeless Issues, College of Communications, California State University, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html>.




Lester, P 1988, Faking images in photojournalism, College of Communications, California State University, viewed 25 October 2011, <http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/faking.html>. 

Perez-Pena, R 2009, 'Trust in News Media Falls To New Low in Pew Survey', The New York Times, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/media/14survey.html>.


2011, 'Orthodox Jewish paper apologizes for Hillary Clinton deletion', The Guardian, 10 May, viewed 25 October 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton>.