News this morning of what seems to be another case of journalists faking their stories, this time an interview with Bill Gates. Following on the faked Reuters photo the other day, you really have to wonder whether these incidents are a sign of a recent lowering of media standards or whether fakes have always been with us and are just being uncovered more often by bloggers and other watchdogs.

I found this the other day cataloguing famous photographic fakes, including allegations about the death of a Spanish Civil War soldier by Robert Capa and the raising of the US flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal (both still disputed, see full stories in link above). The allegations here weren't digital manipulation but that the pictures were posed.

Ethics are a funny thing. W. Eugene Smith is my favourite documentary photographer who had notably high standards, even refusing to use flash unless absolutely necessary. When he took this photograph of a Spanish funeral he reputedly replaced a candle with a bare flash bulb so the lighting would be exactly the same as he found only bright enough for a shot. Yet even he says he would pose a picture "if it was absolutely essential to the truth of the story." From there you go into some very deep waters indeed about the nature of truth.

If shooting on film could be so problematical, digital photography really asks some questions about what is a real, truthful, ethical and fair news photograph. The barrier between digital processing and manipulation is very narrow.

The word "honesty" comes to mind here. In the first instance it is important for media people to be honest about where stories and pictures come from and how they were obtained.

In the end these recent incidents, including some here, are a wake up call to media people to lift their games and to already stressed editors and subs to be even more vigilant and questioning. If something is too good to be true (like running into Bill Gates on a plane) then it may not be. In some cases it may require publishers to pay a lot more than lip service to issues of ethics and standards.

Update 22/8: Joe Rosenthal, who took the above Iwo Jima photograph, has died. His story and that of his famous picture is here. I like the guy's humility:

Yet he never saw himself as a great photographer, but liked to call himself "a guy who was up in the big leagues for a cup of coffee at one time".