Editors and publishers in the Discovery group had another of their terrific quarterly talks on Thursday, this one focusing on submitted photos and when it is acceptable to pilfer photos from the Internet. These are increasingly important questions as our readers take ever-more photos that are ever-more easily altered and posted onto the Internet through a dizzying variety of platforms.
- Can you take that Facebook photo for your police blotter?
- Should you worry about the authenticity of the photo of a tornado that was submitted by an unknown reader?
- Are things posted on Twitter any different than those on Pinterest?
Suffice to say, we found no easy answers to any of these questions.
I have resisted the concept of a written policy dealing with submitted and Internet photos because the potential scenarios are vast. I don’t think I can boil it down to one irreducible and digestible truth.
Instead, I think these are nuanced questions that require editorial judgment. In that way, we are in luck. We have been applying this kind of logic since Ben Franklin was publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette. Here are some guideposts:
Consider the source: Do you know who took the photo? Ever used her photos before? Has she given you permission to use this one? …


