Faulty Image

Figure 1.1: Shot of Egyptian Newspaper Al-Ahram's alteration of image of President Murbarak

As you can see in Figure 1.1, Egyptian’s President Murbarak was shown walking in front of US’s President Obama, along with the heads of Isreali, Jodianian and the Palestinian on a red carpet. Al-Ahram is the newspaper that is responsible of publishing this faulty image. It was found that the original image was taken in the White House in US with President Obama leading the way while President Murbarak was seen at the side, instead of walking in front. The example of the original image can be seen in Figure 1.2. Although the image was later replaced with other picture, the damage was already done.

Figure 1.2: Original image of event in White House

As Schriver stated that to avoid the readers from having to guess and interpret the text wrongly, it is important to choose the right image. An excellent example as shown above has done damage not only to the newspaper itself, but also to the country’s reputation. This issue, in my opinion, will degrade the newspaper and also pull down the newspaper’s credibility.

The credibility of newspaper is important because it is one of the important value of a newspaper that attracts reader to not only read it, but be able to trust on whatever that is written on it for newspaper is one of the way that brings the world together by informing other people about what is going on globally.

Journalist of the article is to be blamed for this error of the article. It is against the journalist rules and ethnic to publish any untrue article. The gatekeepers of the newspaper weighted the heaviest blame and responsibility because it is their job to be the ones who keep track of the articles published. The role of a gatekeeper in the news industries is a person that selects the news to be published or broadcast Cassidy, (2007). This statement is also supported by a research done by Abdulla et al. (2002) on the credibility of the news media. They viewed that the deficiency of editorial and gatekeeping of the newspaper will cause problem on the credibility of the article and newspaper.

So, we have to be careful of what we publish, as a professional journalist or not, so that any problems can be avoided.

Reference:

1. Abdulla, R.A., Garrison, B., Salwen, M., Driscoll, P., Casey, D., 2002, The Credibility of Newspapars, Television News, and Online News. Available: http://com.miami.edu/car/miamibeach1.htm. Last accessed: 5th June 2011.

2. Cassidy, W.P. 2007, Online News Credibility: An Examination of the Perceptions of Newspaper Journalists. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 12(2), article 7. Available: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/cassidy.html. Last accessed: 5th June 2011.

3. DailyMail.co.ul, 2010, Egyptian Newspaper ‘Photoshops’ Obama Picture to Show Their President Leading The Way at White House Peace Talks. Mail online. Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312439/Egyptian-newspaper-Al-Ahram-photo-shops-Obama-picture.html. Last accessed 7th May 2011.

4. Schiver, K.A. (1997). Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers. New York: Wiley Computer Pub. Pg.: 361-441. Last accessed: 7^th June 2011.