For All The Cheaters Out There...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Sacramento Bee fires Bryan Patrick for photo manipulation

There are no rules, thus no cheating; we are all artists (like in "Picasso and I walk into a bar...), thus anything goes... 

[louoates]

Seems to me he was correctly fired for violating his employer's policy several times. I don't see this as much of a Photoshop issue other than than being the tool he used. Something like using a pen to fill in a false business expense voucher. Should be a warning to other photojournalists to sharpen their Photoshop work to be less detectable. 

[Ken Bennett]

Yeah, I don't see this as any different from a newspaper writer making up a story. When that has happened in recent years, the writer has gotten the sack, and rightly so.

[Gary Brown]

Here's an opinion from a nature photography (rather than photojournalism) viewpoint, coming to the same conclusion: Image Manipulation and Nature Photography by Rob Sheppard

[Michael West]

the manipulation was so minimal as to make thier choice to fire the guy laughable.

http://www.poynter.org/extra/bopvsap.gif

 

[Bryan Conner]

I think that a press photographer manipulating an image to make it look better is no different from a writer choosing to only tell part of the story, part of the truth, in order to support a particular (political usually) opinion that he/she has.

[Richowens]

Here is a link to the photo in question.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/01/4232790/setting-it-straight-photo-manipulated.html

The photo Michael West posted is one Mr. Patrick received an award for. It is of the Auburn fire a couple of years ago, but it is another he is accused of altering.

Mr. Patrick was fired for violating the papers policy against digitally altering photographs.

Rich