Computer art wizards have a growing arsenal of tricks to make their creative magic. But this week The Star stood accused of abusing technological tools, going too far and blurring the line between reality and illusion.
Several readers contacted the paper this week after the same image of a young girl appeared in two different contexts in two different sections of Sunday’s paper.
One image was part of an illustration on page A9. It showed a school girl standing before a locker in a hallway as a looming male figure walked toward her. It was created to illustrate a story about school sexual predators and looked very much like a real photograph.
The other image was published on page B5. It showed the original colour photograph of the same girl using a milk-dispensing vending machine. It accompanied a business story about efforts to make dairy drinks more popular with children and youth. The original Associated Press wire service file photo was clearly labelled as such.
Readers quickly caught the duplication.
“How does one believe any photograph shown throughout the paper, when they are obviously superimposed or tampered with?” wrote an angry Christine Owen, of Mississauga.
“I … will have my doubts as to the authenticity of any photograph printed in your paper.” Reader Roland Cadrin, who has read the paper for 30 years, felt “manipulated by The Star.”
“Or was I not supposed to notice?” he asked. “Where is the integrity?”
Grant Evers said the illustration was unethical.
“It is interesting to note that the subheadline on page A9 is, `The people who abuse you are the people you know and trust’,” he wrote. “In the interest of preserving ethical journalism, it is imperative that a photograph of one person should not be superimposed onto another photograph in an entirely different context.”
To make the gritty black and white composite photo illustration for the sexual predators series, award-winning illustrator Raffi Anderian pulled together three images of file art – one of the background hallway, the other of a man from a crowd scene, and the third image of the girl from the wire service photograph. A graphic, detailing statistics telling the “Portrait of a predator” ran at the bottom of the illustration. Underneath, in small type beside the graphic credit, was the credit “Illustration by Raffi Anderian.”
Members of the art department, including Art Director Ian Somerville, initially felt the image would clearly be recognized as an illustration. But in hindsight, he said there should have been more specific information in the credit to show it was not a real photograph. There was no conscious effort to dupe the public with the illustration.
In fact, great pains were taken to make sure the images used in the illustration were altered so no one in them could be identified and that they were not sensationalistic. Managing Editor Mary Deanne Shears personally reviewed all the images depicting students to make sure they were tasteful and not exploitive.
But despite all the best efforts, the end result presented serious problems for readers.
Many newspapers, including The Star, have adopted policies to safeguard the integrity of their images when using computer programs to alter photographs. A study released in February by the Poynter Institute on photographers and new technology concluded: “Because of the ease in the ability to digitally alter photographs, establishing strict rules is seen as the primary way to draw the line against any alteration . . . The basics of good journalism should remain in the forefront and not be overshadowed by new technological tools,” it continued. Is this case, did The Star follow the basics of good journalism?
I agree with readers who felt the presentation of the illustration and photograph was confusing and damaging to the paper’s credibility. It was made more embarrassing because the similar images ran on the same day.
Still, had the illustration run any other day it would have been just as misleading.
The Star policy manual clearly recognizes the pitfalls inherent in the new technologies which: “give us the ability to alter drastically the images in a photograph or to combine photographs with graphics. This should be done with extreme care and should never mislead the reader.”
Staff members at the paper tried to stick to the policy but they were simply not careful enough in this instance.
The incident also points out communications problems between sections and departments. Once Anderian selected the file art piece to use in his illustration, there was no indicator in our archiving or record-keeping systems to let any other editors know when or how the photo would be used.
Like any new technology, computer and digital art have both an up and a down side.
On the upside, artists can now produce complicated illustrations that once would have taken days of hand-rendering in just a few hours. The use and manipulation of photographic images through programs like Photoshop have drastically extended artists’ range and creativity.
It also saves time, a precious commodity when deadlines are looming.
The downside is they can make our jobs just a little too easy – and perhaps, at times, make us a little too careless.
