90ish days of summer
Okay — the Newseum itself is not a failure.
The last time I visited the Newseum was in 2001, and that was before it moved and upgraded to its current location on Pennsylvania Avenue. So I can’t really qualify the renowned journalism museum as a failure if I haven’t even visited the new facility (yet).
More accurately, the Newseum visitors guide is a failure.
Here’s the cover:
The cover looks nice. It’s got D.C. traffic going through on Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s got some nice evening light. Most importantly, it’s got the First Amendment on a slab for everyone to see.
Unfortunately, the cover is a gross misrepresentation of how the Newseum actually appears.
I’ve got proof:
This photo was taken at 16mm (a very wide focal length), from the median of Pennsylvania Avenue, on May 21.
What’s the big deal?
There is a streetlight RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
There’s almost no way to avoid that damn streetlight. Here’s the only shot I could get of the First Amendment without that streetlight slicing into it:
Also taken at 16mm.
But somehow, the photographer who shot the cover of the Newseum visitors guide didn’t get the streetlight in his photo.
Jeff and I discussed the matter when we first saw the visitors guide and noticed the streetlight was missing. We considered that perhaps the cover was an artist’s rendering, not unlike those that architects and designers draw up before a building is constructed.
But then we saw the detail in the background of the photo (example: the leafless tree, the appropriate exponential spacing between the time-elapsed cars), which you can view for yourself here. Then we searched the brochure for photo and other credits, which we found on the inside of the back cover. According to those credits, “Newseum exteriors, Annenberg Theater, Pennsylvanue Avenue Entrance, Today’s Front Pages” are by a Sam Kittner.
I googled Sam Kittner and found that he is definitely not an architect or illustrator, but rather a photographer who relies heavily on exposure trickery and post-production editing. The cover is definitely a photograph and not an illustration or artist’s rendering.
It is then very clear that the absence of a streetlight in the Newseum’s visitor guide cover is possible in only two ways:
- Kittner took the photo before the streetlight was installed.
- Kittner edited the streetlight out after taking the photo.
Option (1) is possible… except also according to the inside of the guide’s back cover, the guide was printed or at least final-edited in March 2009. So unless the city were doing some streetlight renovations before Kittner’s deadline for the March 2009 publication, the only option left is (2).
Therefore, I conclude that the front cover of the visitors guide to a first-class journalism museum has been photoshopped to remove a streetlight that in reality stands in front of the First Amendment.
If that’s not a glowing demonstration of photo editing ethics on a journalism museum publication, I don’t know what is.
What a shame.
- UPDATE (11:18 p.m. EST, May 25, 2009)
Okay, I stand corrected.
Option (1) appears to be the winner here.
As Joel has pointed out using the below image, the streetlight was not installed until at least shortly after the Newseum’s new facility was completed.
So perhaps Kittner’s photo on the museum’s visitors guide cover was taken before the streetlight was installed. At this point, I’m not going to offer any further speculation on that matter.
On a related note, a Twitter debate ensued my blog post, and several other MU journalism students (@mcavanah86, @jmsummers and @pfal) argue that the visitors guide is essentially advertising and that using photoshopped images is permissible for advertising.
I don’t disagree with that. But if Kittner’s photo were edited, I don’t think a journalism museum should have used it. Commercial purposes or not, a journalism museum should uphold the principles on which the journalism profession is based — and that includes not using photos with objects edited out of them.
Words and Light 
This blogpost: FAIL.
all of your conjecture above could be resolved by a 5 minute phone call … but of course where where’s the fun in that.
Hi from StinkyJournalism.org, that shares your concerns that news photos should be unaltered representations of reality –not staged or photshopped.
Look again at the “photo” you questioned. It looks to me that the cover is a architectural rendering of a future building and not a photo at all–you know, the drawings that architect’s do for clients.
Case in point look at the “traffic blur” and other “details” on the street. Looks like art and not a photo to me.
Finally, I think the museum should label the image as a drawing instead of a photo–if that is the fact. (Did you look at the photo credit to check if they said it was a drawing? Did you call the museum or photographer before calling them “failures”? All important to do, you know, before publishing this post).
Rhonda — I do not think it is an architectural rendering, which I did consider as a possibility. Among other small details that to me prove that it is a photo, there is some chromatic aberration along the glass-paneled walls — aberration that is the result of lens glass and the passage of light through that glass.
Additionally, the only items whose media type is specifically listed in the back-page credits are the floorplan illustrations. Every other image in the guide is a photo; therefore, every other item credited on the back page is a photo.
As for your final parenthetical notes, I did not call the museum or the photographer, but neither did I call either a “failure” within the blog post’s body: “More accurately, the Newseum visitors guide is a failure.”
You submitted your comment after I updated my post last night at 11:18 p.m. EST, wherein I agreed to my error in my conclusion. I jumped the gun in posting this, which I shouldn’t have done, but I did have the integrity and transparency to post a correction rather than deleting the post and my mistake altogether.
I was going to say — the (terribly ugly) street light wasn’t always there. Nice investigative work, though.
That figures, you won’t approve my previous comment, but you will post Adam’s positive comment.
Daniel — I didn’t get home from work just now, so I couldn’t approve your comments until just now. Adam has previously commented on my blog, so I don’t have to approve his comments before they appear on a post.
If you would like, I can call up the Newseum’s PR/related office and check into the matter.
Correct that to: “I didn’t get home from work until just now.”
Since architect “drawings’ now are mostly computer rendered and digital, there are photographic qualities put into renderings.
I spoke to the Newseum publications office who said that there were, in fact, “special effects” put into the photo by the photographer so I have written the photographer to ask him for more details.
I really think this is an issue of advertising illustration vs. news photo and I think your point is well taken that in light that this is a news/journalism organization and given the sensitivities about the use of photoshop, it would have been good to put a disclosure in the photo credit. However, I also agree that you jumped the gun by saying the Guidebook fails. It is what I tell StinkyJournalism.org interns all the time–pick up the phone and call people to ask questions before publication.
Indeed you did “have the integrity and transparency to post a correction rather than deleting the post and my mistake altogether.” MsM are you listening?
Rhonda — Thanks for taking the initiative to contact the Newseum pubs office. If you don’t mind, could you let me know (via e-mail or comment — my e-mail is in my “About Chris Dunn” page) if the photographer gets back in touch with you? After having examined his heavily-edited/tricked-up portfolio a few times, I’m curious as to what his methods are.
The context of where the photo is used is very important. For example if they used the photo as part of their press release or press packet then they would definitely need to disclose any image manipulation. Maybe you can see if they circulated that photo by contacting the press office or the photographer.
Personally I do think it is deeply ironic that the news museum uses a photoshopped image however I do not think it is unethical in this context.
BTW the photo was clearly taken after or close to when the museum opened – the trees are bare, the streets are open to pedestrians and traffic and there are planters in place.
Hey Chris,
Despite the likelihood of the cover not being edited for content – though, as the photographer’s profile suggested, definitely stylized in Photoshop – I totally agree with you about being pissed a publication (advertisement or not) of a Journalism institution would misrepresent their own reality.
However, this is just one aspect of the whole blurring of Advertising and Journalism spectrum which is probably aggravating you as much as it does me. (New iPhone anyone?) It sucks to see so many of your readers missing the point.
I’m glad you’re one of the good guys!