More than 9 percent of 2014 World Press Photo competition finalists were disqualified for digital manipulation ruled outside the bounds of ethical photojournalism, James Estrin of The New York Times reports.
News Photographer magazine’s Don Winslow puts that number at somewhere between 8 and 9 percent.
World Press Photo jury chairman Gary Knight told the Times an outside expert analyzed these original digital files, compared them to the contest finalists’ entries submitted for judging and found evidence indicating several photos had been materially altered in post-processing, usually through digital cloning or extreme toning.
“Some of the changes were materially trivial but they were ethically significant,” Knight told the Times.
“In every single case it was a meaningless and stupid process,” Knight said. “None of the photographers improved their work and if they hadn’t done it they may well have been up for consideration.”
Neither World Press Photo nor POYi ever sanctioned Pellegrin, despite outcries from numerous photojournalists, including Pulitzer-winning former presidential photographer David Hume Kennerly.