I was fortunate enough to team-teach a college course in media ethics and law with John Long late '90s and early in the 2000s. I handled print ethics and he taught photo ethics.
The answer to your students' question is simple. Reporters and photographers alter images or "pipe" quotes in order to make their work look and read better. Why not a stunning quote that sums up an issue (and is worthy of a take-out that draws additional attention to the reporter's brilliance in extracting information) rather than a series of dull statements(reflecting the way most ordinary peole speak)? Why not take the electric lines out of the top of a bucolic photo of an old church to make it gallery-quality? And oh, my, that beautiful photo of the pyraminds just won't fit the vertical space on the cover of National Geographic - so jam them together (by reducing the photo left to right and not top to bottom). The technology is so simple that virtually anyone can do it with digital cameras(fix that blemish on Aunt Haddie's face in the family photo or tuck in a photo of someone who wasn't even there). The danger for a journalist is three-fold: first, you are manipulating history, recording something that is not true. Future generations accept the visual lie as if it were historically correct. Second, with digital, there is no negative to examine for evidence of tampering. Third, as Long says, "a lie is a lie is a lie." The excuse that "everyone does it" does not hold for a responsible news outlet. We don't need any more hits to our integrity and credibility.
Context and expectation matter. Put Robert Dole's head on a series of fashion photos to improve his dour image - that's clearly a spoof. Put a photo of a two-headed alien on the front of National Inquirer and all one has to do is consider the source. Would the New York Times do that? But splice a photo of Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding on the ice in Newsday, making it appear as if the two are skating happily side-by-side,and that's a visual lie. Darken O.J.'s mug shot on the cover of Newsweek to make him look more sinister - and that may have a serious effect on public opinion/fair trial.
Print ethics have similar guidelines but are expressed differently, due to the different form of communication. Act independently is critical - in other words, do not put yourself in a situation where you have any allegiance to or relationship with the subject. Deception,in order to get a story, is almost always wrong, unless the topic is of critical importance to citizens, there is no other way to get the information, and the newspaper is willing to tell readers how the information was obtained. Payola, in which a reporter accepts anything of value from the source of a story he is writing, is verboten.There are so many other areas that can be discussed within the context of real case studies.
I designed and proposed the course in media ethics and law when I was teaching journalism, because I saw that our students were terribly ignorant about their responsibilities as recorders of history. They were not deliberately unethical; they simply didn't understand. The course is now required of all students graduating with a major in communications.
For your own information, Poynter Institute in Florida is an excellent resource for teaching ethics. One of its sites, Romanesko,(not sure of the spelling) provides almost daily case studies of real ethical dilemmas taken from newspapers all over the country. Both are free. If you do not have access, I will forward some messages from them if you provide your e-mail.
Thank you for raising these questions in a public format.
Susan Phillips Plese, Manchester, CT, suplese@ix.netcom.com.

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