Photojournalism in China: A Decade Change (Part III)

　

3) Remaining Problems

　

a) Sensitive areas

 

  In addition to covering spot news, China’s press and photographers also cover such sensitive issues as SARS, AIDS, family planning, and religions. However, there are still some areas too sensitive for Chinese press to deal with, including some political news, diplomatic and military events. It is still hard to predict what would be happening in the next few years.

　

b) Legal issues:

  Copyrights are probably the best-protected field among all the legal concerns in photojournalism. In addition to that, individuals’ rights to portraits or privacy, and their rights to honor are also protected by law, although China is yet to have a press law. But sometimes the result could give way to misconduct in practice. A 2004 World Press Photo prize winning image incurred a law suit: the picture, taken during the SARS epidemic, caught a young man and a young woman, who could not be identified since there were masks on their faces, wearing wedding dresses walking in the street. The photographer and his newspaper lost the libel case since the couple is actually two models dressed up for a show, not a couple of lovers.

　

  There are also problems in photojournalists’ right of gaining access to certain news events, such as covering the court. When Li Zhen, a high-ranking official in Hebei, was put in trial for corruption, even the photographer for China’s leading national news agency Xinhua could not enter the court room to cover the case, because of the rejection of a local court official, while local newspapers and TV stations were allowed to go inside the room. Furthermore, individual right to privacy is violated quite often when press photographers go along with official law enforcement task forces in campaigns to crash down illegal activities. On the other hand, many Chinese photographers have had the experience of being assaulted, and beaten by photographic subjects.

　

  Obscenity is also a blur in China’s photography. Nude photographs categorized by the New York Times’ photography director Michele McNally as obscenity could be shown to kids without any barrier in the streets and bookstores.

　

c) Ethic:

　

  The line blur, not just in legal issues, but also in ethics. Most of professional photographers have no idea about photojournalism ethic, and most of photographic training programs never touch on the issue.

　

　Digital manipulating is one of the biggest issues in China today. In the summer of 2004, AP bought a flood image from its source, an online photo supplier in southern China, and put it up on the wire. Soon after that, however, AP had to announce to cancel the image since it turned out that the flood water in the picture was raised one foot higher digitally by the photographer. Unbelievably, the photographer explained in an interview: he raised the water level for “making the disaster more visually” and he did think that had distorted the fact. Furthermore, no one really knows how many politicians’ photos have been digitally manipulated before released to the public, just like a case reported in the Time magazine’s Asia edition in its September 13, 2004 issue.

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