Expert: Don Wood - 4/13/2004

Question
1) What's your name and where do you work?
2) How do news organizations in the U.S. protect the public interest?
3) If you ever published something that received negative feedback from the public, how would you react?
Please answer these questions as soon as you can! I'm usually very responsible about finishing projects on time,so I hope I'm not rushing you!
                 With great appreciation,
                                    Natalya

Answer
My name is Don and I'm retired after working 16 years in the photo department of the local newspaper. News organizations have the awesome responsibility of dispensing happenings of public interest so that all may hear. This is the problem because sometimes the news is biased and slanted. This is because two people viewing the same event can see different things. And then if one is biased and wants to present a certain agenda, the news may be slanted to that view. This may be either a subconscious desire or deliberate. It is up to the reader/viewer to decide which report is accurate.
If what I published is the truth, then no amount of negative feedback would affect me. On the other hand if it is my interpretation of what happened, then negativity might affect me in future articles of the same genre. My reaction might also be influenced by the proximity of the person giving the negative feedback to me. If I'm reading it, I would probably have a different reaction than if the person was face-to-face with me. I expect that unless I'd doctored the print to show the face that I wanted to show, I'd shrug my shoulders and say, "That's life." If I had doctored the print or altered it in any way to depict the subject in a different way than what I saw, then that would be my slant on the subject and my bias. It would not be a true representation of what I took the picture of.
Thanks for asking, if I can help further, please ask.
Don