With our soundslides project coming up, I think that the ethical use of music in multimedia is an important issue to discuss. In foundations of photojournalism and in advanced techniques in photojournalism, this was a frequent topic of debate.
One thing is generally agreed on- if the music was gathered at the scene, such as ambient audio, it is absolutely fair game. But what about the added music we’re seeing more and more frequently in the background of journalistic pieces? Here’s an article from Poynter that makes a few good points:
Some highlights:
“More and more, photojournalists who would never add anything to an image are adding prerecorded music to news stories. Click on a video or audio slideshow on a news site, and under the narration or natural sound, you’ll often hear music. Documentaries and television journalists do it all time.”
One fear the author points out: “Music has power, and within a multimedia story, it has the power to hide a lot of flaws: to make a story move faster, to set an emotional tone for a piece. “The problem is not that music doesn’t work, it’s that it works too well,” said Al Tompkins, Poynter’s broadcast and online group leader.”
I think this is a very well thought out argument. I would say that it is generally my opinion that music is used as a crutch in a multimedia piece, it is un-journalistic in that it adds something that was not there that could potentially change the emotions/opinions surrounding the issue. However, there will always be exceptions– if the music was gathered at the scene, if the music is part of the subject matter, or if the piece is cultural and the music is used to add another layer rather than change the mood.
Anna Petrow Photography 