I approach issues relating to photojournalism with extreme care. I am aware of the moral and ethical dilemmas that present themselves in front of a photographer who plays the role of an eyewitness, both as a professional and as a human being, to the horrors unfolding in front of his eyes.
My eyes well up with tears every time I remember the tragic story of the gifted South African photographer Kevin Carter. In early 1993, Carter was covering the famine in Sudan and took a picture of a starving toddler crawling towards a feeding centre with a hooded vulture watching. This photograph appeared first in The New York Times and was subsequently carried in many other publications around the world. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Carter killed himself a couple of months after receiving the award.
Leslie Maryann Neal wrote in her essay ‘How Photojournalism Killed Kevin Carter’: “Emotional detachment allowed Carter and other photojournalists to witness countless tragedies and continue the job. The world’s intense reactions to the vulture photo appeared to be punishment for this necessary trait. Later, it became painfully clear that he hadn’t been detached at all. He had been deeply, fatally affected by the horrors he had witnessed.” However, not all photographs generate this level of ethical and emotional predicament.
Editorial judgment Last fortnight, some major news organisations, including this newspaper, were scalded by images that failed to uphold some of the cherished principles that govern the newsroom. While in the case of The Hindu it was the choice of a picture of an accident victim in the Bengaluru edition that repulsed many readers, some leading news organisations were hurt not only by the wrong attribution of a user-generated video of the Brussels airport terror attack but also by the publishing of a photograph of two female victims of the bombing. The Guardian , which ran the photo across the front page of the newspaper on March 23, as well as online, was railed on behalf of one of the women, whose yellow shirt had been blown off to expose her midriff and bra.
It is important for photojournalists and photo editors to select images that pass the ‘the breakfast test’, which in a sense encapsulates the potential for reader revulsion. Some years ago, The New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller succinctly explained this test: “On the one hand, you can’t shy away from the news, and the news in this case is the indignities visited upon the victims and the jubilation of the crowd. At the same time you have to be mindful of the pain these pictures would cause to the families and the potential revulsion of readers, and children, who are exposed to this over their breakfast table.”
The Hindu ’s editor, Mukund Padmanabhan, came out with a signed statement to regret the terrible choice of the image in its Bengaluru edition: “The report headlined ‘Woman cycling to work is knocked down by cab, dies’ on March 25 was accompanied by a post-accident photograph of the victim Menaka Gulvady. We deeply regret having published this photograph — its use was a violation of the policy of the newspaper, which prohibits the use of such pictures. The Hindu apologises to its readers, particularly the family and friends of Menaka, for what it acknowledges was a bad mistake arising from poor editorial judgment.”
Let’s look at the photograph and the video from the Brussels attack. Fortunately, The Hindu refrained from using both. The outgoing Readers’ Editor of The Guardian , Chris Elliot, in his farewell column had a different opinion on the use of the photograph. He wrote: “It is important to tell the story honestly, even if that means using difficult images. I think The Guardian was right to use that picture last week. This was debated at The Guardian ’s morning conference, where opinion was divided. However, as I wrote in my replies to readers’ emails: It was the terrorists, not the photo, that took her dignity.” I am not comfortable with this formulation, as it underestimates the longevity of the offending images in cyberspace.
In the case of the user-generated video of the attack, most media outlets credited it to Anna Ahronheim who tweeted the footage of people trying to escape. She got it from a Whatsapp group, which did not leave a trace of the video’s original source. David Clinch, Global News Editor of the social news agency Storyful , said: “The journalists and news organisations who took it from her and credited it to her should have known better… Journalists need to ask: where does this video come from; where were you when this happened? Do you have any other images to show that you were there?”
In his extremely useful website Media Helping Media , David Brewer offers guidelines for journalists working with images. Three important takeaways from his suggestions are: avoid gratuitous imagery that shocks rather than enhances the audience’s understanding— you are not there to sensationalise or impress; respect a person’s privacy, especially the vulnerable — their situation should not be seen as a rung on your career ladder; and never expose someone to ridicule and humiliation — they have to live with the fallout the photograph will bring, whereas you may have moved on to the next story and suffer no consequences. I hope The Hindu ’s photographers and page editors will always adhere to these requirements.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
