SPJ: Phoenix, Arizona Chapter

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

SPJ’s Ethics Committee called upon the Trump administration to remove the fake image that the administration apparently doctored and published online to make a Minneapolis immigration enforcement protestor appear to be crying during an arrest, according to a Jan. 23 statement by the committee.

The committee also called the Trump administration hypocritical for decrying “fake news” while knowingly distributing an image of attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong that misrepresents reality and pollutes public understanding. 

“It is deeply hypocritical for the White House to decry ‘fake news’ while knowingly distributing an image that misrepresents reality and pollutes public understanding,” the committee’s statement states. “Using taxpayer resources to create and disseminate a visual falsehood is unconscionable. The risk that such images will be republished, stripped of context and amplified across platforms is real and profoundly dangerous for society because truthful information is the lifeblood of democracy.” 

The committee said “several media ethics lessons can be learned from the Trump administration’s apparent manipulation of an image of Levy Armstrong to falsely portray her as crying during a recent federal arrest connected to protests over federal immigration actions in Minneapolis.”

The committee said the SPJ Code of Ethics “reminds journalists to vet all information and avoid press release journalism that merely regurgitates official sources.”

“Throughout journalism’s history, authority bias has too often led news organizations to republish government-provided text or imagery with little scrutiny. That practice undermines the public’s trust and the news media’s watchdog role,” according to the statement.

Read the entire statement here.