Read the chapter on WELCOME TO SARAJEVO in our text. In light of the arguments and observations in it are the photos in the link below justified or not? Respond by Tues., May 1, 4 p.m.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/archive-5/
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
27 comments:
Nice to stop and read your articles here. Also you has a great blog. I'm very interesting here. Good job.
Keep writing and share your information, and dont forget to visit my blog too.
When a journalist is experiencing the same situations as their subject or sources, they may feel compelled to want to get the real images out to the public. It is human nature to have empathy for people going through difficult times and in return want to do something to help. Journalistic norms require them to keep their personal preferences and opinions out of news stories. Yet, it can be challenging. For example, in the chapter, A journalist decided to visit a sniper nest in or around the besieged capital of Sarajevo. The sniper tells the journalist that he has two civilians in his sights. When the sniper asks the journalist which one he should shoot, the journalist walks away and the sniper shot both of the civilians. “You could have saved one of their lives” the sniper said to the journalist. Remaining neutral in a stressful situation is a strong challenge journalists have to embark on.
The more you see, the more it hurts and the greater the difficulty it is to be objective. One day journalist Michael Nicholson visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Sarajevo. The sight of two hundred children in danger from the relentless Serb shelling filled him with anger and despair . He was so troubled by their situation that he helped organize a rescue mission and even took one of the children, a nine-year-old girl, home with him and adopted her. Nicholson transformed from an observer to a participant in the situation. Some journalists believe that wounded and dying children are an adequate reason to abandon objectivity. When New York Times reporter Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize for writing a story about a ten-year-old boy struggling to survive in inner-city Chicago, practically living with the family for a month. She arrived early, stayed late, and offered to drive them whenever they wanted to go somewhere. She was a participant observer. “Breathing the air of my subject doing the things they would normally do,” she claims.
The best way journalists can help is by getting the news out as visual as possible to reach people. However, journalists have to be careful not to exploit photos that may be too graphic. The question of whether journalists should ever become emotionally involved in the stories they cover is worth raising. With much of the public already skeptical about the news media’s practices an intentions, any modification of the standard objectivity should be taken with great care.
In the New York Times article “From the Archive: Not New, Never Easy” by David. W Dunlap and James Estrin, some of the photos that were published are justifiable to print and some are not in my opinion. Justified means having done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 5th and 7th photos in the slideshow should have not been released to the public. The only reason for me is that the identities of the soldiers could be picked out easily, Family members and friends of the subjects photographed could suffer stress in viewing their loved ones wounded or dead. The 6th photo is okay because I believe it delivers a strong message without the identities of the solders being shown. All of the photos do have impact for historical records and are very powerful. However, there are other ways to showcase the obstacles of war without risking backlash from public and the families of the soldiers. I feel like photo six is the perfect example.
The issue of whether or not the photos featured on “From the Archive: Not New, Never Easy” should have been published originally is a tough one. Before reading the chapter, I looked at the pictures and immediately thought they shouldn’t be published. I think that the photos could have been hurtful for the families of the loves ones suffering and deceased in the photos. But after reading the chapter my ideas changed and I’m still not certain what I totally think.
Sandy McFarlane, head of psychiatry at the University of Adelaide in Australia, defined empathy as “a challenge that defeats most people.” She said, “if we haven’t lived through the distressing, disturbing experience of another, then the more removed we are from understanding or relating to it.” In this case the pictures are justified. I do believe that it is hard to feel empathy towards a situation or a person going through something if you don’t exactly know what is going on or what the people are going through. The photos in the article showed readers exactly what was happening in the war. It’s like what is going on today with the war. We have been in a war for ten years now, yet many Americans forget. There is barely any news coverage and it doesn’t seem to be something Americans think about every day. But the war is still happening and people are still getting hurt. Seeing photographs from the war can make us realize exactly what is going on.
Another justification for the photographs is what Martha Gellhorn said in the chapter. “I think anything is better than silence. If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.” In this case, the photos can and are being used as a record of events. Some of the photos in the article were from the 40s and the 60s. This shows that these photographs are being used as historical evidence. They are a record of history.
On the other hand, though, I feel that some of these images (if they are graphic) can be desensitizing. If we are constantly being shown photographs of dead soldiers and warfare, then suddenly a wounded or dead soldier doesn’t become a big deal anymore; we get used it.
Michael Nicholson brought up a good point with this quote: ““One begins one’s career as a young man really in a kind of cavalier fashion but underlying all that is a belief that your pen, camera…. writing can help change the way the world is. By making it public, by showing suffering, by showing war, by showing corruption…. you’re going to help change it. But when the time comes to hang up your boots as I’m just about doing, you realize that you’ve done very little to change the world. All you’ve done is to advertise its ills. It’s a very sad epitaph.” Yes, these photographs are showing war and suffering, but what are they doing to help? I really liked Nicholson’s story because he did help. Even though it may at times be considered unethical for journalists to get involved, I actually really liked the fact that he did get involved. There are certain situations in which one can’t help but do something about the problem, whether they are a journalist or not. Sometimes you have to put yourself in and make a difference. By simply taking pictures of dead soldiers, is that making really a difference? Is that stopping the war? I personally don’t think so.
After reading the chapter I realized that I find some of these photographs justified and others not. On the one hand I think that it’s important that these events are documented and shown, on the other hand I don’t think it’s fair to the families of the victims nor to the victims themselves. I think image six would be the perfect image to show. It isn’t graphic or gruesome nor does it show anyone’s faces. Instead it shows the suffering that these soldiers are going through and it really makes you feel for them and think about the situation going on.
I think the argument that empathy is an important virtue for journalists to carry is a valid one. One of journalism's functions is to accurately depict times of war. When innocent people are being killed, I think it becomes increasingly more difficult to report a war objectively, especially if you want your readers to somewhat understand the experiences that soldiers and civilians are going through. Objectivity is stressed, especially in news stories where it is up to the reader to make an informed opinion. But even a journalist like Stephen Dillane, who previously said "we're not here to help, we're here to report," later used his reporting to try to help the children affected by the Bosnian war.
I'm not sure how I feel about these pictures. I agree with the previous comments that it is easy to identify the bodies which makes it more difficult for the families. I also think that too many gruesome photos lead to desensitization. But I also think that in order to break down that sense of "self-preoccupation or absorption in an onngoing task; seeing the other as an object or 'thing'..." these pictures need to be shown. It is not enough that reporters write about the stories. People need pictures to visualize the soldiers getting injured or dying instead of just reading about it. These picture accurately depict the brutality of war and the trade-offs we make in times of war. Though reporters are taught that emotions cloud judgement, Nicholson thinks otherwise--"A reporter's first duty is to get as close as he can to a story. Standing safely as a spectator on the sideline, he only sees things at a distance." These pictures allow both the reporter and the reader to get close to the story. Although I think these pictures give readers at home a more well-rounded perspective, journalists need to find a balance between taking pictures because they're easily obtained and taking pictures that will inform the public and have the potential to illicit empathy, or a realization that these people who are risking their lives are people with families and friends who will have to deal with a loss. Seeing these pictures in newspapers and on t.v becomes taxing for families. Anna Quindlen thinks that reporters have an obligation to their subjects and if this is true, most of these pictures might dishonor the subjects by showing them at their most vulnerable moments. I agree with the other comments that photo number 6 is a good example of a picture that tells a story and allows readers to empathize with the soldiers who need to work together in order to protect a fallen comrade. I agree with Martha Gellhorn when she says “I think anything is better than silence. If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.”
Personally, although it may seem cruel to not explicitly express empathy, while fulfilling journalistic duties, I believe that by fulfilling these journalistic duties, journalists are still acting in a manner that is empathic. For example, despite not explicitly “lending a helping hand” to civilians caught in the crossfire by maintaining the idea “the best way to help is to get the news out” (as Henderson does), journalists are able to keep empathy in the highest regards, by putting the story first and assisting those directly affected by the plight indirectly by exposing the issue(s) at hand. Furthermore, I tend to believe that empathy is the driving force behind not only why photojournalists capture the photos they do and why journalists write the stories they do, but why people consider stories like those presented in Welcome to Sarajevo news. Because if we were not empathic why would stories like these matter in the first place?
With that being said, I do still feel as if photojournalists have to ere on the side of caution to successfully fill, but not exceed the public’s right to know, and while some of the photos provided in the Times article are risqué (since some reveal the identities of the wounded soldiers, I feel as if the photojournalists and the publications that choose to run them have done just that. I’m sure many would agree war is a terrible thing, and brutal thing, and as such these types of occurrences most be shown, to fulfill a story’s burden of proof (again as long as it fits in the category of right to know and is pertinent, and is factually accurate and truthful). Journalists are charged with capturing an event and presenting it as truthful as possible in hopes of keeping the public informed and to prevent and expose wrongdoing, and thus, if coverage fits into the public’s right to know and is provided in hopes of benefitting the public’s wellbeing (although it may be potentially revealing), how can it not be ethical?
It’s unethical to constantly show other nations, particularly third world countries dead with no pictures of dead Americans. The absense of dead Americans until now is itself worrying. If Americans can gawk at dead Bosnians but cannot see their own it indicates a lack of empathy for other nationalities.
Similarly, not showing American civilians can lead people to not confront the growing number of dead. Censorship of this kind is reminiscent of South Korea only ever showing their victories and never their defeats. When the Vietnam War was covered in shocked the public into a realisation of the atrocities of war. These shocking images are powerful. However, I believe that if a persons face is truly recognisable then the family has the right to ask for the photo to be taken down. This way it is the families decision whether they want the image of their family member to shock and inform or be left in peace.
Although some may find those photos to be disturbing or too graphic, there is nothing unethical about them. The journalists are completely justified in taking those photos and sharing them. The truth is that if a reporter photographs anything less than the reality of war, they have not done their job and they have not been honest with the public. Photojournalists are there to capture images that show the truth of war.
Being mindful of how the families of the dead may react to these photos is also important, but photojournalists are certainly within their rights to capture images of war, including death. As long as the images are not degrading to the fallen soldiers or citizens, then there shouldn't be a problem with using them in a report.
In my opinion the photos are a very tasteful and accurate depiction of the atrocities of war. It would actually be unethical and insulting to the public if journalists ran photos that did not demonstrate the tragedy and pain of war and instead ran photos that sugar coated the battlefield and aftermath of a war zone.
These photos are very graphic, but they show exactly what is going on in battle. The public needs to know exactly how the war is shaping, even if that includes graphic pictures. Most of the photojournalists in the article stated that to be professional, they need to take pictures of the truth. This is exactly what they did, so it is an ethical practice.
The only thing I found unethical was the fact that A.P. published Julie Jacobson's photo of a dead marine when the family did not want it to be published. I feel like there should be a sanction that if the family doesn't want it published, it shouldn't be. Besides that point, anything goes.
You don't want photojournalists, or any other journalists to take their jobs lightly. So this means bringing the best and most accurate pictures back from war, and publishing them. Everyone has the right to the truth.
Many times, its seems as though most journalists lose their composure when they go out to get coverage on areas that are effected by the wars. Though it is the responsibility for journalists to report images out to the public, it is difficult to ignore the people affected by the damages that were done. We see that example in the chapter where Michael Nicholson was devastated because a nine year old girl as well as other children were held captive in the orphanage. Nicholson saw the need to help this poor girl because of her circumstances.
To be honest, this is a very complex situation when journalists are out reporting. On the one hand, the reporters are supposed to get as much information as possible. On the other hand, there are some journalists who have empathy because they see something or someone that is being under attack.
I believe that it is really a case by case situation when dealing with the ethics of photojournalism. Some photos can be more graphic than others but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be taken at all. Some of the photos on the site were questionable due their violent graphics but others have an importance and should be shown. The photos diagram what is really going on. A journalist is supposed to seek truth and report it. The images aren’t edited just as stories aren’t edited to “cushion” the blow to a reader. They present a time line of history in images so that an audience may view what others have seen firsthand. It is important that they do see these images because it does allow them to find empathy. Words can also bring empathy but not in the same way an image can. Journalists are supposed to do no harm but be accountable. This is where it gets down to a case by case situation of ethics. A picture could be telling the story that the journalist has to tell but could it be harmful to the people with in the image?
I have been reading a lot about compassion fatigue for my final project on Afghanistan. It has really opened up to understanding how it happens and the helpless-ness people feel. This may seem an excuse but I don’t think it is. People get so overwhelmed by an image or cause that they think the only way is to help so they ignore it. The chapter did bring up this term and the effects it can have. Photojournalism has a true position to make a cause important and impactful without allowing their audience to totally dismiss the case.
After reading the chapter and viewing the plights of Nicholson, I believe that just because he was close to the story didn’t mean he lost all objectivity. I believe that because he was so close to the case, he was able to report it with a better understanding. He had a human responsibility to the story and the people in it. I don’t think for a second that it made him less of a journalist, because every second he reported it made him more of a human being.
The photos in the article are justified. The job of the journalists and the photojournalists is to seek the truth and report it. As frightening as it may be to look at some of these photos, they are the truth. The pictures captured the exact truth of what is going on in war. Whether you choose to look at these pictures or not is up to you, but as people in the society, we have the right to know what is going on.
This brings up the question, is it better to not show these photos and not make the public aware or is it better to show these horrifying pictures so that the public knows what is going on? I think that it is better to show the photos. As a public as a whole, we do not know a lot about the war that is going on. We especially do not know about the brutality of it. These pictures will portray to the public how extreme the war is.
Overall, I think it is ethical to show these pictures. It is the journalists doing their jobs. I think that many people do not realize how difficult the job of a journalist can be. It is not easy for them to take pictures like this, but they know that they should be reporting the truth and that is what they do.
However, I do feel for the families and friends of the loved ones. It is hard enough to lose a loved one and then to see harsh photos in the eye of the public can be even harder. I think that the question of whether this is ethical or not will be an ongoing battle. However, as I stated earlier, I do think that it is ethical. The public has the right to know.
I believe that the photographs are justified. They represent exactly what is going on overseas, and as the public we have the right to know the truth. Although the images being shown are extremely graphic and emotional for the viewers they are depicting the reality that the public in the United States doesn’t see first hand. As a photojournalist, is it your job to capture the truth and report it, just like it is the journalist’s job to seek the truth and report it. Even though they are two different mediums, the results are the same.
I agree with what Martha Gellhorn said in the chapter, “I think anything is better than silence. If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.” In this case, the photographs are being used as records for the future, along with representing what our soldiers did for our country. They are represented and looked at as heroes. With no documentation of them they will be forgotten forever. By the public viewing these photographs it also allows them to express a feeling of empathy for both the individual and their family. Without showing these images the public would not feel for these people and look up to them.
On the other hand though, by showing to many photographs it could eventually lead to the public being totally desensitized to such images. We do not want the public to have no feeling at all, but rather a feeling of appreciation along with sadness for the individuals. Overall, I do feel that these photographs were acceptable to show to the public. It was the photojournalist’s responsibility to document and get these photographs so the public can be aware of the reality overseas. Even though it must be extremely hard for the journalist to do this kind of reporting first hand, the job is done even better because he was actually close to the story. Because he was close he was able to fully understand what was happening and report it with a better understanding.
I believe that the photos within the lens blog article are justified. I do not think that these photos are overwhelmingly graphic or jarring. They do depict wounded soldiers and corpses but they also provide an inside account to the face of war and the tribulations that American soldiers are facing.
To quote from the article, photojournalism Michael Kamber said, "As journalists, we need to be able to work openly and publish photos that reflect reality so that the public and government officials have an accurate idea of what is going on. They can make decisions accordingly.” I believe that publishing images of war is a necessity, but I believe that photojournalists should also strive to create work that is empathetic and professional. Therefore, I think photojournalists should not publish photos that are over-the-top gruesome and will cause a boomerang effect with readers rejecting the photos completely.
This blog discussion is also relevant to the case I am studying for my final assignment in which, I am assessing Andrea Bruce's photo series "Uncovering the Sadness of Young Deaths." A quote I used in my project was one from war photojournalist Joao Silva. He said, "At the other side of the camera, there is a human being, and that human being is trying to stay alive, trying to capture, trying to get the message out to the world, and trying to stay safe.”
I believe that it is important to publish photos that reveal the struggles of war. The public has the right to know what is going on in the world otherwise they will be left ignorant to the true harshness of reality. I think that ethics of photojournalism varies on a case to case basis and that the photographer should consult their conscious and consider the situation from all angles before they publish a photo.
Considering all the arguments in the chapter “Journalism and the Victims of War,” I believe that the photos are justified. The photos, while depicting horrifying images, are true representations of war and the gruesome reality of it. Journalists, particularly photojournalists, have to be empathetic because they show, not just tell, images of war. Photos put a face to the names (and stories) and give people a feeling of being closer to the action and to the victims.
The quote from the 1980s documentary War Reporters, Martha Gellhorn said “I think anything is better than silence. If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.” I think that she's right. If there are no pictures, then how does the public know the truth? Or a version of the truth? The photos on “From the Archive: Not New, Never Easy” are not gratuitously explicit or untasteful, they are real. I think an important part of this issue is that the photos are of dead (or wounded) American soldiers. We are so used to seeing images of dead “others”: our enemies, our allies, but hardly ever, our own men, which is weird because it would seem that we (as an ethnocentric nation) would have most empathy for our own soldiers. However, I think that while the images stir empathy in the viewers, we should think about the victims families as well. We should feel for them and understand how they will feel when seeing these images.
Journalists have to be careful not to print pictures just because they are gruesome or paint certain individuals in a heroic light, but because they reveal the truth. They have to have empathy for all parties involved: the subject, the viewer, the family and even veterans of war.
I believe journalism photography is a very sensitive matter when trying to understand the proper ethical behavior that should be performed. I agree with Martha Gellhorn who said, “Anything is better than silence. If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.” War is a horrifying, and evil event that has become a nature of human lifestyle and to the people who have experienced this live, they can tell you this. It’s one thing to live it, and another to know about it. The people sitting at home, rutting for soldiers to defend their nation, have no clue has to the horror of war. For this purpose, I believe war photography is effective journalism. It gives those people sitting at home an understand about what war really looks like, no matter how visually disturbing this may be.
Then there is the conflict with privacy. These dead bodies in the photography shown in the link, were once living people. Living people with family members that are weeping for the loss. By publishing these images, journalists have printed an image of a dead body has the last thing they saw of their loved ones. Although some family members may understand and take it has something prideful, something that their loved ones may see as an act of heroism, there are still children, teens, daughter, son, too young to understand, that have to witness this graphic image.
I agree with Nicholson when he says “ when the time comes to hang up the boots as I’m just about doing, you realize that you’ve done very little to change the world. All you’ve done is to advertise its ills. It’s a very sad epitaph.” These photographers saw people in their last critical moment of life, and instead of offering any type of help or anything that could make a difference in the situation, they took a picture. I don’t blame them, it’s not as if they are properly trained to react to these situation or even have the willpower to suddenly put their life on danger. I am just saying, journalist should also put empathy to their subject, the bring out a greater good, a purpose that will be served by that picture. Not just to sell the newspaper.
I feel that photojournalism is a touchy subject in terms of ethics and is only seen as unethical when images are too graphic or revealing. I think that the photos within the article From the Archive: Not New, Never Easy are justifiable because they represent what the story is trying to tell in a visual way. Sometimes readers can fully empathize and understand a situation with images and can't do the same with just words.
In the chapter, Martha Gellhorn said “If nobody puts it down on the record anywhere, then the monsters win totally.” The blog photos are records of history, as is any photo. So if looking at it from her point of view, these photos are justifiable since they expose the public eye to real life history of that time.
However, there is then the issue of privacy. The soldiers in these photos have family and friends who will dwell on their injuries or death. Ultimately, it'll be harder to overcome the tragedy when a photo of them shot or injured at war is out in the public eye like the internet and newspapers. It taints the image of who these men and women once were before the war. The friends and family don't want to remember them in their worst state, but keep the memories of the good times they had. By photojournalists taking and publishing these pictures, they aren't showing empathy towards the family at all; they are more concerned with snapping the best photo so that it does get published in the article.
If photojournalists want to meet in the middle they shouldn't disclose the identity of who is in the photos.
In the chapter, Michael Nicholson said "...Writing can help change the way the world is. By making it public, by showing suffering, by showing war, by showing corruption, you’re going to help change it." This may be true depending on the photo and the article, but in terms of comparing it to the Lens blog, this is not the case. In fact, I think it could backfire and viewers/readers could ultimately stop showing sympathy because it's seen too often. After a certain point, us as humans aren't shocked by certain events or images anymore. With increased internet usage, we are exposed to more information than ever in our lives. Seeing dead bodies might not leave someone shocked or feeling sorry, but in fact apathetic to the situation. They may not see it as a big deal because it's so common to see now. This is something photojournalists need to think of; their market is everyone.
When dealing with photojournalism it all depends on how graphic the photos are that you want to be shown to the public. In this instance the journalist is definitely justified by showing these photos to the public. People should be able to see what life is like especially during war and what happens on a regular basis. People looking at these photos should feel what these soldiers are feeling in order for the message to get across to whoever is looking at these photos.
By not showing people what is actually happening to people during war journalist are not ethically doing their job if they do not show the reality of life of what any sort of war can do to a person. In the chapter Welcome to Sarajevo, the section Welcome to Hell shows a journalist Michael Nicholson in the middle of a deep concerning issue dealing with young children. The section goes on to state "The sight of two hundred children in danger from the relentless Serb shelling filled him with mixture of anger and despair." The section then goes on to state "Some journalist just don't believe that wounded and dying children are an adequate reason to abandon objectivity." Even thought Nicholson felt the emotions of wanting to help children by adopting one and writing about one of their stories journalists believe he didn't do his job the proper way because he had used children to get his message across.
Similar to most of the previous responses given, I am indecisive with my opinions on the example given. As addressed in the "We're not here to help" portion of the chapter, and as every journalist knows, we are supposed to remain neutral and objective.
Henderson is quoted in the chapter saying, "We're not here to help, we're here to report." In other words, journalists are not supposed to become vulnerable to empathy, and in the case of the photographs that were published showing body parts and severely injured soldiers, this is precisely what occurred. The photographer of each photograph remained a bystander, simply capturing what exactly took place during that time.
However, realistically it is sometimes impossible to remain unaffected and unsympathetic. For example, in Welcome to Sarajevo, Risto helps load bodies into transport cars after he finds out what the woman lying on the street is saying. Professor Good follows this by saying how reporters often seem to forget that the subjects of a story are real people, who are suffering and dying. While looking through the pictures I immediately thought if I was the family member of one of these victims, I would be horrified to see it published on the internet for anyone to see. I would wonder why it would be so necessary to show such a graphic image to the world, and what is being gained from it.
But since I do not know any of the people in the images and do not have an overwhelming emotional attachment to them, I can understand the argument that citizens need to know exactly what takes place overseas, and the best way to get the point across is visually. Also, from my personal observations, these photos are actually less graphic than most war movies or documentaries that have been produced.
Therefore, I would like to say that the photographs published on the Times website are justified because they are fulfilling the "need to know" aspect, and these photographs are not too far off from what the majority of citizens have already seen through other mediums. But a slight part of me is still very empathetic towards the victims' families.
When looking at the photos in the article it was pretty jarring to imagine myself as a American citizen seeing these photos published and recognizing one of the boys as my best friend or cousin or whatever. Putting myself into that perspective tells me, No way is it right to show faces of our dead soldiers if the family and friends don't want to see it. That's why when some of the family members objected to the photos they should NOT have been run. That is a constant reminder of not only the soldiers pain but the family's pain on every newsstand. Just as many of my classmates stated, we want the audience to be empathetic BUT I think it is extremely important to be an empathetic photojournalist/publisher as well. In the chapter the philosopher William Franken says we should develop, "an ability to be aware of others as persons, as important to themselves as we are to ourselves, and to have a lively and sympathetic representation in imagination of their interests and of the effects of our actions on their lives." The photojournalists and the publishers should put themselves in the shoes of the grieving families. Would you want everyone looking at your dead son being carried by other soldiers across a field? That is where I disagree with the running of certain photos in our history. It is the job of both the audience AND the journalist to be empathetic and that means knowing when to say no to a photo because it will severely affect someone out there. If you can't see their face or identify them, then that's a different story. But we are human beings. Before our JOBS we should consider our consideration of other human beings that have feelings much like our own.
That being said. Many of the photos, while graphic in nature, provide a true representation of the effects of war on American soldiers. I think it is very important to see these images so that people everyone know what they are sending their young men off to. Is human life worth human power? I think by showing these photos it's a good way to report the truth while exposing people across the globe to a side of war that they NEED to know. It's reality. As the chapter discusses, it is hard to find the happy ending in war photojournalism. A lot of times war still happens, and people still died and nothing gets done. But like many others I do agree with the end of the chapter that, "Anything is better than silence." Giving one more person that perspective may make a change somewhere. You never know which photos will affect which parts of the public more and its worth the risk.
I think many of these photos were justified in being taken and run, but when a family member explicitly asked a photo not to be run, they shouldn't be. There will always be more photos of more war that could hurt one less person than that family member.
I think that it is important to consider for what purpose a photograph is taken, and what the implications of the photograph mean for various people. A journalist's job is to report on events, no matter how disturbing, and to bring to light realities of the world. There's being a journalist, and doing you job, and then there's having opinions and emotions in your personal life. These two things sometimes conflict, which is where our problem lies.
When a photojournalist is out in the field taking photos, he is doing so with the intention of simply reporting. It's his job. When it comes to the question of whether to publish the photos, I think it is important for the photo journalist to consider the consequences of the photos. He must consider what photo would harm others the least, while still conveying the truth.
This is sort of what we've been talking about all semester. How do you seek and report the truth, while minimizing harm to others? The harsh reality is that journalists tell the hard truth, and sometimes it creates adverse conflicts. Still, the entire point of our media ethics class, is to help us realize that there are ways to alleviate these consequences. We don't want to blindly report things. We want to think about what we are reporting, and what it means to the public.
After reading the chapter, I have come to the conclusion that the photos in the link are ethical. They were all taken with the intention to bring the realities of war to the American public. Without these photos, people would be even more disconnected from the very serious events of war. The intentions behind publishing the photos, in my opinion, outweigh the possible negative effects.
Here's a breakdown:
Intentions:
To seek truth and report it.
To connect Americans to the war(s) their country is/was involved in.
Possible harmful effects:
Loved ones of those suffering are offended/hurt.
Readers are offended by the graphic nature of the photos.
If you were to use an ethical decision-making model to come a conclusion about the ethicality of the photos, you would need to consider these things. You would also need to choose which values are more important.
When it boils down, the photos are graphic and can be offensive to some. Still, they are real and important. That makes them ethical.
-Charlene
I think that it’s important and crucial that there are journalists out there that are by the horrors of war. Their lack of emotion is what allows them to take photographs and cover the realities of war from a strictly neutral point of view. Yes, these photos are disturbing and graphic. But I believe that they are completely justified. Without them, how would the mass majority be aware of what was going on in these remote places? The photographs have the power to make the viewer feel something. Unfortunately, I think that the media today shows was too many graphic and disturbing pictures. Our society has become desensitized to these images and their messages are not being delivered.
Although I believe that it’s a journalist’s duty to cover the truth without showing empathy, I understand it must be difficult to reject the emotions that go with being in such terrible situations. It’s human nature to feel empathy for others who are struggling. It takes a certain kind of people to completely remove themselves from what’s happening around them and only focus on the task at hand.
Michael Nicholson went into Sarajevo with the mindset that “we’re not here to help, we’re here to report.” As the war rages on, it began to emotionally break down Nicholson. The desire to take action and not just stand on the sidelines and report was too strong for him to deny. Although I do believe it’s a journalists job to seek the truth and report it, I understand why Nicholson reacted the way he did. We're all human, and I think what he did was more helpful than just standing by and reporting a war that wasn't being recognized on the level it deserved.
It is very difficult for photojournalists to stay objective in stressful situations. When photojournalists are in extreme situations, such as in an active combat zone with the Army, they see everything that happens so it can desensitize them as to what is appropriate for the public to see. Some of the photos in the New York Times article are a bit too graphic to be shown to the public. While it is important to represent the true horrors of war, it is also important to protect the families of those who were injured or killed. In some of the photos in the article, the victims are easily identified and the photos can be harmful to the psyche of the victim's families. If a photojournalist is representing the war, they can do so without making the victims identifiable. Photos 1,2,5,6, & 7 do not show the faces of the victims, but they truly capture the horror of the war. These photos are important evidence for the history of the war. they represent what actually happened, not what the reporters choose to tell us. Photojournalism is important to history, but not at the cost of harm to families.
I personally think that is very cruel to post pictures just to fulfill your duty as a journalist. A family should not have to suffer, just so that the point of a story can be portrayed correctly. I do however, agree very much with Kaitlyn on the view point of how photos can help people feel empathy towards an important issue.
When seeing an intense photo, a person might be able to feel something that they would not . feel if they just read about it. It is true that many Americans are too focused on their own lives to pay any mind to what is going on in the war.
I think the quote " Anything is better than silence," is a really good way to show that if we are not completely informed, we remain naive and unaware of our surroundings. If we are unaware, we can not or will not create change. Getting a picture of what happened does give the full story and shows the audience reality, not an image of the story through rose colored sunglasses.
In light of the arguments and observations in the “Welcome to Sarajevo,” I think that the photos in The New York Times’ compilation “From the Archive: Not New, Never Easy” were justified. War correspondence is a difficult thing to pin down in terms of ethics. As it says in the chapter, the character Risto silently rebukes the press for “forgetting, as they too often seem to do in their pell-mell pursuit of the best story or footage, that these are real people, real as themselves, who are suffering and dying” (Good 153). Many ethical decision-making models are based in the belief that empathy is an important component of ethics. As such, it would seem that according to those models, war photography would not be ethical because the photographers stay behind the lens, removed from any human interaction or expression of empathy with their subjects.
However, people need to see these photographs. As the editors of Life said of the Sarajevo photographs, “people ought to be able to see their own boys as they fall in battle; to come directly and without words into the presence of their own dead.” This is one reason why the photographs are justified. They show the truth, and to censor the truth would be to treat the public as if they were in nursery school. Confronting the public with these images not only allows the public to appreciate the sacrifice soldiers are making on their behalf, but also generates more emotions than a newspaper article might, which leads to louder calls for change from the public.
A photojournalist’s attitude is of utmost importance. As it states in the chapter, “Watching her let go, Henderson says, ‘The best way we can help is by getting the news out.’ Although this may not seem like much under the circumstances, it actually represents a sizable shift in Henderson’s perspective. Where he previously considered reporting and helping as distinct, he now describes reporting itself as a form of helping” (Good 154). Henderson’s new view shows that he is showing empathy for the subjects of his photographs. In fact, they are no longer subjects, but people. These feelings can serve “as a clue to reality a door to understanding” (Good 157).
Getting physically and emotionally close to a story can allow a journalist to tell a story better and more completely. As photography Russell Burrows says of a war photographer who covered the Vietnam War, “He was trying to present the war in a way that it would reach people as opposed to a way that would so horrify them that they would shut down and not see the pictures.” The photographer who Burrows was referring to obscured the face of a killed soldier out of respect. This empathetic attitude illustrates why these photographs are justifiable according to the rules of ethics. They were not taken callously with the same attitude as a student filling out a math sheet. They were taken for a purpose, with care for those within the frame. As it states in the text, “Maybe journalism can make a difference. Maybe like a stake through the heart or a silver bullet, the right words and pictures can defeat monsters” (Good 160).
Post a Comment