Yep, if you are going to cover something as a journalist, you need to remain impartial. That’s your job. You are there (theoretically) to simply record the event and facts. Your images should not skew toward one side or the other. Clearly, in today’s media, we know that is not the case. Long since gone, I feel, is the basic standard I just mentioned.
I’ll be honest, it’s really hard for me to do that. I have very strong opinions on politics.I do my best though to look for both perspectives when photographing events. This event though, was pretty one sided. There were no counter-protesters amazingly. When I was there though I flat out told a couple people that when asked who I was photographing with that I was with, I simply responded myself and that I was impartial. Though, you could tell from the various expressions on my face that I was not.
Today, I feel that it is even more difficult. One of the groups that are clearly being attacked is the free press. I will do everything I can though to capture both sides of the argument, with one caveat: the other side needs to be factual. Then again, that is the rub isn’t it. Unless you can do fact checking before you click the button, it’s hard. What isn’t hard is when you share the images, you can select only those that are after you do your research.