The official wording of Qualification #3:
“The photograph and its presentation meet contemporary
American newspaper reportage standards for
non-misrepresentation of both the circumstances and the
appearance of the original scene (including indisputable tones and colors).”

Two important things about “misrepresentation” and Qualification #3:

1. For TrustImage purposes, “misrepresentation” is gauged by “contemporary American newspaper reportage standards.”

Q3 is based on “newspaper” standards, not on the more-lax standards of most magazines, books, and non-news websites, and it is based on “contemporary” standards, not on the looser standards of decades past.

Most of the photo-manipulation controversies that people can cite either occurred in non-newspaper contexts [in magazines, usually, or on websites not run by newspapers] or they occurred in newspapers more than a couple of decades ago, when standards were looser. (In the 21st century, newspaper photographers lose their jobs over photo manipulations that go unnoticed at many magazines. When photographers complain about “inconsistent standards” regarding photo manipulation, they are usually confusing the standards to which newspaper photographers are held with the more-lax standards of magazine photographers.)

Contemporary newspapers certainly are not without flaws, but between their print editions and their online editions newspapers are “the largest disseminator in the world of trusted photographs.” When and if it is proven that another source of still photographs is more deserving of that title, Qualification #3 will be revised accordingly.

2. The “presentation” can be used to keep the photograph from being “misrepresentative.”

In fact, when there are unapparent aspects of the photograph about which a newspaper would notify viewers of the photograph, then the TrustImage photographer MUST similarly present the photograph in a way that notifies viewers of those aspects if the photograph is to meet Qualification #3. This “viewer notification” can be done in a caption or accompanying story when appropriate (that’s how newspapers usually do it), but in most cases it can be solved simply by adding a “/CC” (for “controlled conditions”) to the TrustImage label.

The two most common examples cited on this website of situations in which at least a “CC” is warranted are photographs of a typically-wild animal photographed in captivity but who isn’t visibly captive and a posed or staged scene that looks spontaneous. (Newspapers publish both kinds of photographs regularly — “zoo babies” in local news reportage and “staged scenes” in theater and movie reportage — but readers are always somehow made aware of the controlled conditions under which the photograph was taken.)

Whatever the solution used by TrustImage photographers for “unapparent aspects of the photograph about which a newspaper would notify viewers of the photograph,” that “viewer notification” must be in the same size and location as the word “TrustImage” (or vice-versa, if for example the word “TrustImage” is added on to an explanatory caption).

Needless to say, almost every photograph has some “unapparent aspects,” but if an unapparent aspect of a photograph would not warrant separate explanation by a newspaper, then the TrustImage photographer need not make special note of that aspect either.

(See “B” on the Using TrustImage page and the pages linked thereto for more on these subjects.)

< To return to previous page, use browser’s Back button
Keyboard shortcut is usually Backspace [Windows] or Delete [Mac]