It is something many of us who have hit middle age would appreciate: a photograph where our head sits on a younger, trimmer body.

Newsweek bestowed this photographic favor on domestic diva Martha Stewart who graces the cover of the magazine’s March 7 issue. When Newsweek hit newsstands, Ms. Stewart was still in prison. But on the cover there she was, smiling radiantly, dressed preppily, her svelte body framed by gold curtains.

Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor of Newsweek, told National Public Radio that, “It was not our intention to deceive; it was our intention to amuse.”

Newsweek disclosed that the cover was a photo illustration – or composite – on page 3 of the magazine in a credit line. It’s an area of the magazine normally of interest only to the cover photographer’s mother.

When NPR asked if she had any regrets, Newsweek’s Ms. Staley said, “I think that, you know, we have to be a little careful. I mean, maybe the worst thing I could say is that we were possibly just a little too successful here.”

Actually, the worst thing that could be said was the news business needs to be especially careful not to look like it plays fast and loose with the truth – photographic or otherwise. Inside the journalism fraternity we have our own rules and understandings. In that context, labeling the cover a “photo illustration” removes any question that Newsweek was trying to lie.

But clearly many readers were misled. The Monitor’s own policy on computerized photo editing specifies that, “Everything in the Monitor must be precisely what it appears to be. Photographs that have been altered for illustration purposes should be clearly labeled.”

Newspaper conventions differ from those of magazines. But it would have been better for Newsweek to have disclosed on the cover that what readers were seeing was an altered picture of the soon to be sprung Martha.

Of course, most of the pictures we see of the famous are altered in another way, with various surgical enhancements and reductions. If you watched last Sunday’s Academy Awards, you got an eyeful of that.

Those of us who are plunging through life without surgically improved bodies can’t fail to appreciate what modern photographic editing makes possible. As I work at my computer munching on a Hershey bar, it’s nice to know that in the next Cook family portrait, my thinning white hair and multiple chins can be sitting atop Brad Pitt’s body.

Journalists have a lot to be modest about. We always have.

The Christian Science Monitor was founded as an antidote to the journalistic excesses of the early 1900’s after the paper’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, found herself on the receiving end of the era’s yellow journalism.

Whatever modest contributions the Monitor has made to improving the news business since then, the media still have a well developed appetite for gossip, sensationalism and sex. The endless coverage of the antics of Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, and the Super Bowl striptease come to mind.

But two items today offer a pointed remainder of what journalism at its best tries to do for society and the courage journalists display in their search for truth.

Tuesday’s Monitor recounts the story of Washington correspondent Howard LaFranchi’s treatment at the hands of chimeres, young street thugs organized and armed by exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Howard is in Haiti to report on the uprising that led to Aristide’s ouster, and the arrival of US and French troops.

On his way to conduct interviews on Sunday, Howard’s car was surrounded by a truck full of heavily armed, ski-masked young men. As shots were fired in the air, Howard and his driver were pulled from the car, held at gunpoint, and robbed. From his days as the Monitor’s Paris bureau chief, Howard knows French and was able to negotiate with the French-speaking leader of the gang who finally released our reporter and his driver.

The story underscores the courage and quick thinking reporters on foreign assignments must display as they go about the business of gathering the insights readers need to understand events overseas.

The second, much less dramatic journalistic event is that Monday The New York Times adopted new standards on the use of confidential sources in stories. The Times's policy statement follows on the heels of The Washington Post’s issuance of similar guidelines late last month.

(The Monitor has had a policy on such sources for some time. It says: Avoid the use of anonymous sources. Where such use is unavoidable, the source's point of view -- or potential source of bias -- should be indicated as fully as possible. Reporters must identify anonymous sources to senior editors upon request.)

Reading the Post’s and the Times’s highly detailed instructions for reporters and editors on line, I was struck by the effort both organizations are making to lift standards in our profession and to make the journalistic process more transparent, thus boosting public trust in our craft. As the Post memo notes, "Transparency is honest and fair, two values we cherish."

There is much in the news business that needs improving. But it is encouraging to see the emphasis placed where it should be – on integrity.

The Post memo on the use of confidential sourcing sums the issue up well: “Our reporting should be honorable; we should be prepared to explain publicly anything we do to get a story.” (By Dave Cook)