Pulitzer Prize Photos

Childhood Innocence

The pictures "Faith and Confidence" by William C. Beall and "Wheels of Death" by William Seaman are pictures that majorly represent childhood innocence. "Faith and Confidence" shows a young boy who was being curious at a parade. A young police officer came to protect him from walking into the parade, while in "Wheels of Death" there wasn't anyone to protect the young child from the street. His protection didn't come until after it was too late. If someone would have just stopped and helped him cross the street he might not have died.

These pictures really stood out to me, in the simple fact that they were so meaningful in the way of the children. The children were so innocent in there ways. These photographs really touched me with the fact that it really hits you deep in the fact that the children didn't know any better. The "Faith and Confidence" boy didn't know any better than to go into the street to get closer to the parade. But, luckily the officer was there to help him and keep him from getting hurt. However, in "Wheels of Death" there wasn't anybody to save him from the dangerous cars.

A Soldiers Death - The Controversy

A 21-year-old marine was killed in Afghanistan. This story is a very sad story. His company had two reporters with them at the time. When they were under fire everyone was notified that there was a casualty. The reporter was laying down trying to stay out of the fire taking pictures of what she could see. She was with the company to learn and report about the war. She was doing her job perfectly until she crossed the line of posting the photographs of the injured marine in the national newspapers and on the internet. The line that she crossed wasn't just considered too far by the American people, it was considered too far by the family. The family had strictly asked her not to publish those pictures of their son in that time of great pain.

The reporter mainly crossed the code of ethics. At the point when the family asked her not to publish the picture she should have automatically refrained from posting it. But, even as a journalist, she broke one of the main standards. Number four on the NPPA Code of Ethics, journalist's standards, "Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see." This journalist didn't treat this tragedy with respect, dignity, didn't give special compassion to this tragedy. Instead she was very disrespectful to both the family and the deceased soldier. She also didn't give this situation any compassion, she didn't think about it as if it were her own family. Finally, she didn't need to post this specific image to the public. The public was not begging for this picture to be publicized. She could have reported this story to the public with a different picture. She could have used the picture from the memorial service that most of the other newspapers used. I think that all the journalists involved with posting this story could have used better choices and thought more about their personal code of ethics to make the final decision of publicizing this image.

Picture Study

The picture study was a very interesting study. It made me open my eyes and analyze pictures closer for clues of it being altered. The picture I studied was a fake because of it being unrealistic. The landscape didn't blend together, so there were two different types of landscapes. Also, the calmness of the antelope running was very unreal; compared to how close the train is the antelope should be more alarmed than that. Putting all of these clues together caused more attention to be drawn to this picture. After more study they realized that the one picture wasn't just altered. The photographer put two entirely different pictures together to try to make one. Other than the picture being a fake it is a really cool photograph, if only it was real. The fact that he faked this photograph brings up the topic of ethics, was it right or wrong to forge this photo. In my personal opinion changing this photograph changes goes against the NPPA Code of Ethics. It is disrespectful to the photographic moment of each of the pictures that were put together. Each picture was a special photographic moment, but by putting them together it ruined each photograph's integrity.