Comm 409 Chapter 19 Ethics in regard to Photo Journalism One picture is worth a thousand words Powerful News Images Capture a Moment in History Origins of the idiom a bit cloudy but refers to the incredible power of the visual image to convey a message in a way that mere words cannot With great power comes great responsibility Photographic and video images can reveal great truths expose wrongdoing and neglect inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the glove through the language of visual understanding Photographs can cause great harm if they are callously intrusive One great news story can be worth 1000 headaches Case Study Budd Dwyer Suicide A public official done in a public place But does the public need to see it Case Study The Grisly War Photo Among the ethical concerns printed The photograph graphically depicted reality but was it too graphic to be As with many news photos this one captured a violent act Editors were confronted with the ick factor of a dead body breakfast test Some who argued for its use cited journalism s obligation to show Americans the reality of what happens in wartime Without it they say it becomes too easy to go to war again Those who argued against its publication cited the desecration of an American soldier and the insult it represented to the proud military tradition Furthermore some wondered to what degree publication was playing to the mentality of the mob Were they acting so violently toward this dead American soldier simply because a photojournalist was present to capture their actions for posterity How did newspapers handle it No universal agreement among editors of 34 major market US Daily papers 11 use it out front 15 used it inside 8 didn t use it at all An editor s struggle Cole C Campbell Virginian Pilot readership drew heavily from military families at Fort Eustis and Norfolk Naval Air Station Likely to be extra sensitive to the degredation but at the same time the decisions by politicians to commit the country s young man At the time the dead soldier was not identified and his family might not be notified at the time of publication More than 100 soldiers from Fort Eustis were serving in Somalia at that point but it turned out that none of them were injured that day Paper normally does not print photos of dead bodies especially on the front page However Campbell realized its power to be a game changer publication could affect the level of the US involvement in Somalia and his readership had such a great stake in the outcome of that policy debate Campbell s ultimate decision Virginian Pilor used the photo in color out front starting above the fold but with the body actually appearing below the fold On the jump a note from Campbell read in part The photo is difficult to look at It was difficult for us to publish We decided to do so only after long discussion involving many voices in the newsroom There was no consensus The Photographer s Struggle Paul Watson In less time than it took to breathe I had to decide whether to steal a dead man s last shred of dignity The moment of choice in the swirl of dust and sweat hatred and fear is still trapped in my mind denying me peace Watson grabbed the shot and ran back to his car The mob was growing increasingly unruly He realized his original shot revealed too much of the near naked soldier s body parts and feared no mainstream newspaper would publish it Risking his life he returned to the scene and captured a less revealing photo The photo and resulting Pulitzer mad Watson a star Watson s Struggle continued Watson felt guilty He fell into a deep depression became a substance abuser and eventually sought psychiatric treatment I felt like I d stolen a man s soul to make a point Didn t at first know the soldier s identity did research to find his identity o Tracked down SS William David Cleveland s family to ask for his forgiveness Still a photojournalist released a book in 2007 Doesn t regret photo but acknowledges the struggles that came with it Another tough choice Fallujah 2004 Editors and news directors are confronted with powerful images this time from Fallujah Iraq They show the charred dismembered bodies of Americans hanging from a bridge and the Iraqis cheering in jubilation some of them further mutilating the dead bodies This time the dead Americans are civilians not soldiers Technological advances since 1993 meant editors and news directors did not have the luxury of time to sift out their decisions Fox CNN and MSNBC aired the stories throughout the day gradually opting to show more of the violent images The 3 major TV networks aired the stories at the nightly newscasts but it took the unusual step of pixelating the charred bodies Fallujah 2004 Changing Media Landscape Unfiltered versions of the videos were readily available on the Internet Circulation was expedited as people could have instant access to them