Why it was right to publish this picture of an execution...
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Version 0 of 1. I asked yesterday whether the media were wrong to publish video and photographs of the killing of two journalists in Virginia. There were many intelligent criticisms of my opinion, both on my blog and on Twitter, most of which suggested I had been overly lenient to editors by suggesting that it was simply a matter of editorial (and audience) taste. One particular critic, Liz Gerard, wrote a brilliant response on her own blog, Subscribe, which undoubtedly merits wider attention. It is long and detailed, but I’ll outline the gist of her argument. It hinges on the difference between the publication of the images of the shooting of the journalists, Alison Parker and Adam Ward, and the publication in 1968 of a photograph taken of a Vietnamese general shooting a Viet Cong soldier at point blank range in the head. Gerard flatly rejected my argument about the coverage being a matter of taste. Instead, she wrote: “It was a matter of judgment.” To that end, she spent some time questioning the editorial decision-making behind both the promotion of the story and the selection of images used by most of the papers. It could only be explained, she argued, by “prurience, callousness, and lack of judgment.” Then she contrasted the reasoning of the New York Times in publishing the Vietnam picture, observing that “the image led to wider questioning of the prosecution of the war in Vietnam and to intelligent debate about the role of war photographers.” She concluded: “It is most unlikely that the sad shootings of Alison Parker and Adam Ward will have any impact on American society, and it is certain that they will have no effect whatsoever on life in Britain. That is the difference. And that is why it was wrong for the Virginia murders to have been given the treatment they received from Fleet Street... It is time we started thinking more clearly about what we do and why we do it.” I should also point out that the New Statesman’s editor, Jason Cowley, made similar points when we were interviewed jointly on Radio 4’s World At One. |