Video Editing Ethics

Xenia Shih

On the day that we critiqued our three photo assignments, one issue that came up about my detail shot was whether or not I could have flipped the photo since it was an upside down shot of a hand. What we learned was that it would have been unethical for me to flip it because doing so would be altering the photo from its original state. Therefore, it only makes sense that the same rules that apply to photo editing should apply to video editing as well.

I was really surprised by Dave Wertheimer's anecdote about the journalist who asked an NFL draft and his family to recreate the moment in which the player found out that he had been drafted. I thought that some of the other examples, such as the one about a photojournalist marrying footage of a storm with better-quality sound than the original, were actually debatable in terms of ethics. However, I thought that it was obviously unethical for the journalist to ask the NFL draft and his family to reenact a moment.

Overall, both articles were really informative and helped me understand how much is too much when it comes to editing.