I think this holds true for photojournalism as well. I’ve got a few photojournalist friends here in Connecticut and at least one of them said the paper he worked for did not even allow the photographer to crop the original photo. This may be extreme, I really don’t know. Regardless, I think that there is a very slippery slope when it comes to photojournalism. Before the photographer even trips the shutter he has made a decision about what to keep in the frame, what to leave out. These decisions may be aesthetic, they may be political. Regardless, they have to made to make a photo. When you get into digital processing and manipulation you are making those decisions again. I think of the Beirut photographer that did a (horrible!) photoshop job on some images that Reuters published. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_H…hs_controversy ) who knows why he did it, but photoshopping more smoke into a “news” image isn’t cool. At what point does that news image become editorial or even propaganda?

As far as the World Press Photo goes, I think it is fine as a piece of art, but that wasn’t the intention. As a piece of photojournalism, I have a problem with it. The changes that he made make it very cinematic–I think of Annie Liebovitz’s photos of the Soprano’s cast. A moving, disturbing photo, but not photojournalism. I really saw nothing wrong with the original, but the original probably would not have been an award winner.