As Senior Vice President, Content, Ken Mainardis oversees all of Getty Images content divisions across its editorial and creative spectrum.
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Millennia-old cave drawings aren’t simply curiosities, they’re also extraordinary images — some of the first-ever known to us — and depict everything from everyday life and human interactions to warfare. But are they factual recordings of history? We can’t be sure. As we wrestle to confront our new health and social reality, we are also being called to interrogate what is real and what is fake in every piece of content we consume.
I like to think that what we do today at Getty Images is a direct descendant of these first “images” — part of a great legacy that I both hope and believe will continue indefinitely. Across editorial and creative imagery, we continue to tell the story of humanity — our daily lives, dreams, successes and failures — through billions of visuals.
And yet, are our visuals entirely factual? Although authentic, are they consistently reflective of our nuanced realities?
A complex question deserves a complex answer.
From the birth of visual storytelling in those caves, a tension has always existed between the world as it is and the world we wish for — hence, the power of the historian and the artist to depict what is, what might be or even a variation on an in-between. As we set out on our mission to “Move the World,” it’s also a tension that exists amongst our own content.
As we have seen through a series of powerful diversity and inclusion-forward initiatives, including Project #ShowUs, LeanIn and The Disability Collection, commercially released content with a purpose has the opportunity to shape cultural conversation and create fresh consensus on gender, ethnicity and disability. As the building blocks designed to sell products to consumers — across finance, lifestyle, healthcare and travel, to name just four — creative content must be aspirational. It activates an innate ambition in all humans to experience something which goes beyond the mere act of consuming. To experience something better.
Countless brands and marketers have made the shift for “good,” and admittedly, there is both a moral and commercial responsibility in such efforts. While we collectively continue to support the commercial models of advertising and marketing, we are all striving to contribute toward a better world that helps the evolution of our society. And yet, we cannot read such content as reality frozen into digital rock. Instead, our combined realities are laden with complexity.
Despite all of our hopes for a better world, poverty, racism, sexism, war and corruption remain, and we would fall short of fulfilling our mission if we avoided telling the stories associated with them. It is here that we touch the very heart of why journalism is vital and integral editorial efforts crucial.
In recent months, I have been asked why we’ve covered white supremacist counter-protests, why we ignored the New Zealand Prime Minister’s call not to publish the name of the accused in the Christchurch mosque shootings or even why a price appears next to news coverage of police in a physical altercation with a black individual in New York.
The answer to these valid questions is that this is our reality. Our editorial integrity and the investment the journalism industry makes in it is the only route to doing our very best to record history in a way that is meaningful, as opposed to only representing the world as we hope it to be.
And that is regardless of how emotive the issue is for us personally. Or how close the issue is for us geographically. Or how insistently someone in authority requests an omission.
It is through this integrity that people know they can trust the news they consume as objectively factual, confident it has not been influenced by a political view.
We don’t take a “stand.” We intentionally report and represent what we see, exactly as we see it. We must be as objective as possible, shedding light where we can while informing at the same time. Fair reporting should not be mistaken for sitting on the fence; it has to highlight right from wrong but it has to be grounded in the belief that objective coverage creates space for discourse, allowing both content creators and readers to find alternative perspectives in complex issues.
All news organizations face this conundrum day in and day out, with the most reputable media allowing for the discomfort which objectivity can create.
This is the difficult aspect of journalism: separating one’s own personal beliefs from the responsibility of the profession to remain objective and therefore valuable — to “hang up” one’s nationalities and loyalties in order to create relevant journalism.
So what we have here are two sides of a content coin: a wealth of creative content showcasing the world as it could be, and editorial content depicting the world as it is.
I believe that human successes, failures, kindnesses and horrors all hold truth and should be documented and shared, no matter how harsh we may feel the light might be. Because that light enables us collectively to imagine what “better” looks like and informs creative teams as they sketch out visions of a better world. I consider myself and my fellow media professionals to be privileged in that we get to share that vision with customers, listen to how they receive it and adapt our content accordingly over time, which, without question, will fuel a better society.
And perhaps now, more than ever, we want to think about that version of “better” — to consider what it might feel like, to dream about it. As we collectively grapple with the global challenges of these uncertain times and the fear that “normal” may be a thing of the past, we want to look toward what could be, what we hope may still be. That’s where media, marketers, brands and agencies can further demonstrate value — depicting what is, and also suggesting what might be, through the power of visual content.
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Author: Ken Mainardis, Forbes Councils Member
