No matter what kind of story a newspaper prints, it must communicate only what the writers and editors of that newspaper believe as the truth.  The staff of a newspaper must also conduct themselves in a fashion that upholds the truth and credibility of not just their publication, but of all newspapers.  A newspaper is not worth the paper it is printed on if it has no credibility.

            A publication earns credibility by reporting the truth and if they cannot verify facts, then they don't print it. Credibility means that every time you read a certain newspaper, you know you can believe what is written.  Tabloids such as the National Enquirer do not have credibility.  When you read a headline or story in the Enquirer, you question whether what you are reading is the truth, don't you?

            All this is the same for photojournalism.  A photojournalist does the same thing a reporter does, only they use a camera instead of a notebook.

            A photojournalist's job is to go out and experience life for others, to capture an event on film, and hopefully capture the emotion that was experienced, so the readers can see and feel what it was like to be there.

            The photojournalist must capture the truth, too.  This means the photographer must only photograph what has happened, when it happened and not recreate a situation because they didn't get there on time.  They must not move things around on the scene of an event to make the pictures look better.   They must not alter their photographs on the computer or in the darkroom, like take an ugly telephone pole out of a picture.  The photojournalist must also tell the truth, just like the reporter.

            In the ideal world the reporter and photographer work as a team to cover a story, whether it be spot news, sports or features.  After the reporter is assigned a story by the editor, the reporter tells the photo editor what their story is about and the photo editor will assign a photographer to work with the reporter.  The team discusses the story, what writing angle the story will take, who the subjects are that will be interviewed and what the best photo opportunities are.

            Sometimes a photojournalist will pursue a story on their own and will use a series of photographs to tell a story.  This is called a "photo essay" or "picture story."  Some photo essays will rely mostly on the photographs to tell a story with the only words being from "captions" which describe what is happening in the picture.  Other photo essays will have stories with them, most of the time written by reporters.