Our communique on an oddly distorted AFP photo and caption is now posted and available on the HonestReporting site.
Poynter, the journalists’ site, has a list of different papers’ standards for photojournalist ethics. Here are guidelines from the New York Times, Washington Post, and AP.
All of these documents demand photojournalists refrain from distorting their photos to achieve a certain effect, such as exaggerating a destructive scene.
UPDATE: Our original communique described the lens used by the photographer in the distorted picture as a “fisheye” (extreme wide-angle) lens. That was incorrect — the lens was probably a medium wide-angle. The communique on the HonestReporting site has been updated with this correction.
