ABSTRACT
Followers of some of the oldest religions on this planet have told variations of this parable. It goes something like this: Six persons are blindfolded and led into a large room that has, without their knowledge, an elephant. One of the most dangerous myths that come from this illusion of balance is that opposing sides of an argument should always be represented when reporting a story. Where the issue of the objectivity is most interesting is in a discussion of photojournalism and documentary photographers and filmmakers. Photojournalists for paper and online news entities almost always make visual messages intended to be single-picture records of that day's news, sports, features, and so on. The public relations professionals are allowed to "fix" quotes for the people they work for, to make them sound smarter, pithier, or more articulate than they might really.
