Photojournalism in the Age of New Media

 

General Photography

This article about “Photojournalism in the Age of New Media” is well worth the read, since it delves into the actual journalism aspect of things, in other words the need to verify information. Key quote: “the high velocity of social networks that makes verification so problematic means that conflict imagery is often left open to misinterpretation and, subsequently, reactionary violence. ‘With images, there’s a huge danger of producing false impressions or false information with bad analysis,’ said Jake Naughton, who does outreach and production at the Pulitzer Center.” I am slightly tempted to think that the article puts a slightly tilted angle on verification, though, ignoring that whoever assembles the stories - and does the verification - in essence creates the story (which might or might not be biased or outright wrong for whatever reason). I’d argue that verification needs to work both ways: Just like organizations verifying images they grab online, the resulting stories must then be subjected to verification by the general public, something which, after all, is straightforward in this age of the new media. Various recent cases seem to have shown that the organizations mentioned in the article are not so eager about the latter, though.