Disturbing photos

I received a strong reprimand from Ficali the other day, because I had complained about her not updating her blog, and then I didn't update mine. "I've updated mine three times since then," she said. "And you haven't, even once."

In my defense, my mind has been churning out blog entries all week, but I just haven't been able to put get them down. For example, in my International Reporting class, we talked about disturbing pictures, and about whether they should be shown. Our professor showed us a few examples. I looked for some of them online, to see if I could put them on here, but these media people guard their pictures very closely. So, I will attempt to describe a few. There was the one of the US serviceman being dragged through the streets in Somalia, which was printed, and I think shown on TV as well, at the time. There was this one, of the charred bodies of two people (contractors, I think?) hanging from a bridge in Fallujah.

Another one was of the bodies of about eight to 10 Nepali civilian workers lined up face down on the ground in Fallujah; an Indian mother surrounded by her dead children, with her hands on her head, and raw emotion on her face, after the tsunami.


The picture to the left; another one of supporters of the African National Congress setting a man from the Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa on fire; and the one below, among others.

We also saw one photo of a suicide, of a female refugee in a Srebrenica refugee camp.

I found the last one, which I've looked high and low for a picture of - and couldn't find- the most disturbing. The woman in the picture has hung herself in a forest, and it has been shot from her right. When you first look at the photo, all you see is a beautiful, almost wistful, picture of a woman, facing off to the right of the photo, in a wood, sounded by vivid green foliage. It looks like a calm and peaceful photo, and it isn't until you look at her legs that you realise that there is nothing under them, that they are dangling. And then you realise what the picture is really of. There is something so personal, and so sad about it, that it feels like a terrible invasion of privacy to look at it.

For the most part, I'm a firm believer in the media showing and telling things as they are. Not at all in sensationalism, but if there are terrible things going on somewhere, pictures reveal the true horror and the sufferings of the people, much more effectively than words can, no matter how descriptive. I don't think it's the role of the press to sanitise these horrors, and to protect their readers, from what others are going through. For example, the tsunami was so remote to people in the US, because most of them don't know anyone from that part of the world, and many haven't even heard of the countries affected. Showing a grieving mother surrounded by her dead children be it in India as a result of the tsunami, or in Beslan, after the horrific school massacre, puts a face on these otherwise faceless tragedies, and reveals to people the extent of their impact.

The photos of the aftermaths of bombings and such manmade horrors serve a similar purpose. They are snapshots of what has happened, and show people the degree of suffering and depravity in that action. It is reality, and it needs to be shown.

But the photo of the suicide does not serve this purpose. In suicide, one cannot point out exactly why it happened. Even if someone commits suicide every week at that refugee camp - and that would certainly be worth a story - there are almost certainly other factors involved as well. Otherwise, why would there be still others who find their lives worth living, at least enough to not kill themselves. There was something that this woman was feeling that pushed her to the edge in that situation, that someone else was not going through, that gave them the will to live. And the way the photo was shot, she could have been anyone - as easily a wealthy woman from the suburbs of Los Angeles as someone in the refugee camps of Srebrenica. It doesn't support the story, and that was why I thought it shouldn't have been used.

It was a very sober couple of hours, but it made us examine ourselves and our priorities - sensationalism, protecting our readers back home, or showing the truth.