ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the long-time assumptions upon which trust in press photography has been established, turning “to a technological fix to rescue the veracity of pictorial journalism: the unimpeachable photograph”. The difference between legitimate and illegitimate digital editing would not be based on the nature of photographs themselves, nor on the relationship between photographs and the reality that they depict, nor even on the relationship between the photographer, the photograph, and the public. The chapter addresses the ways in which analogue precursors to modern photography and editing tools remain a standard in newsrooms and in ethical codes. In 2003, Dona Schwartz published a study on photojournalism focused on the different strategies put forward by professional associations, newspaper image editors, and photographers to assess the challenges which had emerged with the digitization of photography beginning in the late 1990s.
