That’s Uncredible!

Texas man misidentifies Red-headed Woodpecker in his back yard as a (probably extinct) Ivory-billed Woodpecker (via The Birdist.). KYTX credulously reports:

KYTX deleted most copies of the story and video from their web page, but this one's still up as I write this. Note that the deleted story was not replaced with a retraction; it just went down the memory hole. No journalistic lapses to see here, folks!

Pizzeria owner near Pittsburgh misidentifies a pigeon as an angel in his security camera footage. KDKA credulously reports. Luckily, they've called in the nuns, who receive extensive training in image and video analysis.

HDR, photojournalism, and Lightroom 4

On his blog, Charles Apple discusses the use of high dynamic range (HDR) images in newspapers. The discussion raises questions about what constitutes excessive manipulation for photojournalism, and in particular what the impact of next-generation photo processing software will be on these definitions. I don’t know, in detail, the prevailing ethical standards of photojournalism, so in part I’m looking for the thoughts of experts on the topic.

Let’s begin by discussing HDR photography. The sensor in a digital camera is only capable of recording a certain range of scene brightness, from dark to light. A part of the scene that falls outside this range will be “clipped” to pure black or white, without detail. To get around this technical limitation, it’s possible to take multiple exposures of the scene, with different exposure settings (e.g. shutter speed). This will allow some of the exposures to record the bright parts of the scene, at the expense of the dark parts, and other exposures to do the opposite. These exposures may then be combined in software, to produce a “high dynamic range” image, whose range of scene intensities surpasses what the sensor can record directly.

Local journalism today

The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat reports:

I’m a descendent of Joseph Johns, so his ancestors are my ancestors, too. I would have enjoyed the opportunity to meet them. I’m surprised, however, that any of them are still alive, since Joseph lived from 1749–1813.

(Note: The web headline was corrected by the time I wrote this, though the error lives on in the URL.)

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Meanwhile, on the TV side of things, WJAC reports:

Well, somebody sold me strawberries and herbs last week. And they sure looked like farmers, but now I’m wondering.

Oh, OK. The Johnstown Farmers’ Market opened May 20, three weeks ago. Whew.

Headline of the day

In ScienceDaily:

Great Tits Also Have Age-Related Defects

Yes, that is less than 50%

The Penn State Daily Collegian, “State's tobacco prevention receives 'F' grade”:

Pennsylvania spends less than 50 percent of what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends it spend on tobacco prevention, said Deborah Brown, CEO of ALA of the Mid-Atlantic.

The CDC recommends Pennsylvania spend $155.5 million on prevention and cessation, she said.

Currently, the commonwealth only spends about $14.7 million, she said.

A very special episode of Hoarders…

or: The article that didn’t bark

The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat reported a fire at the home of Chandan Vora yesterday:

A Johnstown firefighter was injured battling a fire Monday that caused heavy damage to the basement of a home on the 500 block of Robb Avenue in Kernville.