A photo can be a powerful tool to tell a story but can also alter the story's meaning if not used properly. Using photos as an accessory to the text itself can result in the deterioration of their place in journalism, and mistaken understandings may arise in newspapers where photos are seen as the cosmetic sidekicks of the article.
We have stressed this point on this page far too many times. However, a letter from one of our readers came to our attention earlier this week. Our reader seems to be discontent with a photo we used in a news article titled "Ethiopia struggles to help its 5.5 million child laborers," which was taken from an agency. The article was published in the Dec. 29, 2014 issue as well as on the Daily Sabah website. Here is the letter from our reader:
"Dear Editors,
I want to express concern [with] the article 'Ethiopia struggles to help its 5.5 million child laborers.'
Acknowledging the good relationship Ethiopia and Turkey have, you need to be carouse [sic] when you publish such articles.
The overall theme of the article is good and professionally balanced. But the picture you choose for the article is absolutely misleading; it is far from the reality. Instead, using the right pic you randomly select (East Asian kids) from the Internet to express [sic] the article.
For your information, there is only one cigarette factory in Ethiopia owned and highly regulated by the government. There are no such tasks for the kids in Ethiopia. Besides, Ethiopia has the lowest rate of cigarette smoking in the world.
So, with due respect, I ask you to apologize to the People and government of Ethiopia and publish a correction on the article.
With regards,
Teklit"
Two complaints were issued here. The first was that the photo did not feature children from Ethiopia; the second was that the photo is misleading because it portrayed children working in a tobacco factory even though Ethiopia does not face this problem in the tobacco sector.
After looking into the matter, we realized that our reader was right on both counts. We reviewed statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor, and there seems to be child labor issues in Ethiopia's agricultural sector but not in tobacco plantations or factories. Since our reader was right about his second complaint, the first did not warrant any further investigation. When we also checked the printed version, we saw that the story did not feature a photograph and the aforementioned photo was only present on the website. Our web editors removed the photo following the complaint by our reader, and we thank him for the correction.
I want to use this opportunity to remind my colleagues that sometimes our desire for a more complete news article may lead us to facts that we cannot confirm or origins of photos we cannot verify. If such a case arises, it would be wiser to take the safe road and refrain from including them. After all, our readers read our news stories for facts centered on events, not speculations or pantomimes.
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