PR In Canada

Thank goodness for Photoshop. What would we do without it? A quick touch-up shaves 10 years off the CEO’s annual report picture; and we’ve got this great photograph from the annual staff party, but that director is no longer on the board, so let’s just Photoshop him out. There. Perfect.

Sound familiar? How many of us involved in the publication of corporate information have not electronically manipulated images at some time or other to create a better impression or present a slightly different version of reality?

Is there a difference between an artist sketching a picture to represent an element of our corporate story and a graphic artist altering a photograph or creating a new picture from several images for the same purpose, and if so, what are the ethical implications for us as communicators?

For example, a promotional campaign for a professional sports franchise calls for a crowd shot, but there’s no perfect picture. So the director of marketing and public relations asks a graphic artist to create one by removing fans whose eyes are closed or who don’t fit the image he wants to convey and replace them with people from other pictures. Nothing wrong with that is there? Not much different to getting a sketch artist to create an image based on the set of pictures. But should the manipulated photograph be identified to readers as having been “electronically enhanced” and is it unethical not to do so?

When first confronted with a similar scenario in an ethics quiz that is part of the accreditation process of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), my response was no, because the electronic image was meant to be a representation to a crowd scene in the same way that a sketch would have been.

But I was deemed to be wrong. Article Two of IABC’s Code of Ethics says professional communicators disseminate accurate information. A manipulated electronic image creates a “false reality” that is not an accurate representation of the original and should therefore be identified as an altered or enhanced picture.

I accept IABC’s interpretation, but I’m not convinced that it should be a hard and fast rule. For example, if the sports franchise promotion claimed that the picture was part of the crowd on a specific day, then it would be wrong to change it in any way, just as a sketch that claimed to be part of a crowd on a specific day could not include the likenesses of real people who were not there. However, if the picture was meant to be a representation of the crowd – and after all, promotional material is very often representational rather than real – then I would argue that a disclaimer is unnecessary.

For me, it’s a question of how a reasonable person would interpret the image. Adding or taking away elements of a picture that claims to be – or even implies that it is an accurate representation of a person, place or event is clearly unethical if it does not include a disclaimer.

But beyond that, where do we draw the line? By its nature, promotional material is aspirational and therefore often represents the ideal rather than the real. I believe most people who read promotional material know that and don’t need a disclaimer to explain it to them.

Categories: Features
Tags: Ethics, IABC