LAST week in this slot we talked about to what extent newspapers should protect readers’ sensibilities regarding the printed word. Today, let’s examine the often vexed issue of picture selection.
As Picture Editor, I sometimes have to make difficult decisions on how best to illustrate a story within strict time restraints. I strongly believe we shouldn’t over-sanitise situations for our readers, who are, after all, intelligent individuals with good ability to reason what is right and wrong in the world we live in. That being said, it is important for me to bear in mind that we have no way of warning readers in advance of the pictures we are putting before them.
A case in point would be that of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee who was washed up on a beach near Bodrum, Turkey, and was photographed face down in the water with his mother and other members of his family. The wire feeds carried a powerful and distressing set of images which to this day makes me emotional.
This was too important a story to ignore photographically; we chose to give front-page treatment to an image of a police officer carrying little Alan’s lifeless body up the bench in a tender, gentle manner. This illustrated the heartbreak of the situation and how it called to our common humanity. Other news outlets chose to run with images of the boy in the water. I'm not saying this was wrong; those were indeed powerful shots, but I wanted to give this young lost life some compassion and dignity in death.
Another tricky decision arose on 9/11. I watched in disbelief as hundreds of images dropped into our wire feeds. There were so many strong and harrowing shots of high technical quality. But the one that will always sticks in my memory was of the man, now known as “The Falling Man”, jumping from the building.
This was a powerful image that showed the torment of the people within the burning buildings. It was not the best quality, as it was taken from a distance, but it conveyed the true horror of the situation. We ran the picture on an inside page; most other news outlets carried it too. I will never forget agonising over the thought of that poor man’s family seeing the image in the following days, but I think it was the correct decision. As is often the case, one man’s plight shone a light on a deeper story.
I don’t make these decisions lightly. I will carry them with me for a long time.
I try to use my moral compass when selecting images. I will sometimes I get it right and other times not. My aim is to continue to deliver thought-provoking photo-journalism that makes our readers think about and question what’s happening in the world, even if they don’t always agree with the choices we make.
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