A definition of Photojournalism - Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order to tell a news story.
With this definition it makes the "rules" so broad. With this definition staged photos seem totally acceptable. They could be telling a news story about a political issue, event, etc. Also the means of editing leave interpretation to the editor.
There has to be something said about timing. Right place, right time. Or perfect timing to see and compose a shot. To me this is what photojournalism really is. Giving viewers a glimpse into something that really happened, something authentic and genuine. Im curious to know how much editing our past war coverage had done to the images besides some dodging and burning.
I may be getting cheesy here but while you may be skeptical that "the decisive moment" doesn't exist without extensive manipulation I disagree. But I think when one is competing against people who do manipulate it's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
I don't pay much attention to the World Press awards. I haven't seen much but from what I've seen I have a hard time getting inspired. Every year is always a big hooplah about how the winner's photo is over edited. I'm not interested in looking at digital images or how people are editing their images. So I don't really care.