Talk About Sanctimony
Talk about sanctimony. See e.g. the N.Y. Times “Lens” blog segment called “Behind the Scenes: To Publish or Not” by David Dunlop about the decision of the Associated Press to publish the photograph of a mortally wounded marine over the objections of his immediate family members.
The photograph was part of a series by Julie Jacobson, a photographer embedded with a Marine unit in Afghanistan. The series shows the soldier on patrol in the streets of an Afghani village, and then the solider on the ground minutes later, tended by a fellow marine, after his leg has been taken by a rocket-propelled grenade. The series includes photos of fellow marines mourning the soldier, before his gear, at a memorial service.
The soldier’s father, when shown the photograph of his mortally wounded son, asked that it not be published, telling A.P. that by distributing the photo, it would be dishonoring the memory of his son. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote to A.P. on the family’s behalf, saying, “why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling.”
But, after what Santiago Lyon, head of the phography division at A.P. called “a healthy discussion…the decision we came to was that — as a journalistic imperative — the need to tell this story overrode some of the other considerations.”
Why am I not surprised?
A.P. and the photographer Jacobson acknowledge that the shock value of the photo was a strong factor in their decision to publish. (Duh.) As Jacobson said, “it is necessary to be bothered from time to time.” [Italics added.]
Okay, I understand A.P.’s position (which I’m going to accept is a good faith position and not simply as a cover for the photographer’s wish for fame and kudos, and A.P.’s wish to sell newspapers.) I was very against the Bush administration’s refusal to allow flag-draped caskets to be filmed; I felt it was a way to lessen the impact of the war at home, and that it, in fact, dishonored the sacrifice of the lost soldiers.
I’m also sure that Jacobson, embedded with the troops, grew to truly care about them and their sacrifice, and that she feels very strongly about the value of her work in bringing much needed attention to them.
So I understand (and I’m willing to believe) that A.P. and Jacobson really do want to show how awful war is, and to emphasize the burdens and terror suffered by the troops.
What I don’t get is how A.P. decided that the collective “bothering” of casual readers (who can, if they want to get a better view, click a button to expand the image to full screen proportions) outweighed the additional specific anguish that they were causing the soldier’s family, the people who were closest to that soldier’s face and figure, who have a claim in his remains. (The arrogance and sanctimony of that decision is so mind-blowing that it frankly tends to shake one’s willingness to believe that A.P. and Jacobson really are acting solely in good-faith, and are not swayed by unexamined narcissism.)
Yes, the photo makes the point about the omnipresence of terrible death in war. But, in the face of the family’s objections, wouldn’t the image of the living soldier, with the phrase, “he was mortally wounded ten minutes later” do the trick?
Lyon of A.P. babbled that the death “becomes very personal and very direct in some way, because we have a name, we have a home town, we have a shared nationality and we have, to a certain extent, a shared culture and some common values.” But couldn’t A.P. have illustrated the “shared culture” business by showing the soldier at, for example, his high school prom?
Jacobson, whom you sense is just desperate to defend her position (and is clearly devoted to a photo which she must view as one of the greatest of her career), notes that the other marines in the squad had no objection to the idea of publication. (I’m guessing the photo “bothered” them less since they were actually on the scene.) Yet I wonder in this specific case if the marines were informed of the objections of their compatriot’s family. Somehow I can’t quite hear them saying to Jacobson, “the family’s against it? So what?”
The final appalling piece to me of this story is the sanctimony of the New York Times. The Times, during the slow news days of Labor Day weekend, manages to re-publish the picture (again in clickable full screen proportions). In this case,the Times is not even reporting the poor soldier’s death or the terrible burdens faced by troops in foreign wars. No, with pompous self-regard, it is republishing the photo simply to discuss the burdens of those in the Press. (The burdens of dealing with family wishes, societal strictures as to appropriate conduct, good taste, compassion, common sense, honor.)
Shame on you, Times.
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This entry was posted on September 5, 2009 at 10:44 am and is filed under News Media. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: Afghanistan, Associated Press, Behind the Scenes: To publish or not, embedded photographer, Jacobson, Julie Jacobson, manicddaily, New York Times, photography, Robert Gates, war photography
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ManicDDaily 
September 5, 2009 at 2:51 pm
While we understand a reporter’s job as merely describing events without attempting to shape them, we value the fruits of a reporter’s labor precisely when they provide us a foundation for shaping events. But providing a foundation for shaping events means shaping them at one distance of remove, so a reporter’s neutrality remains ever contestable, the more so the more important the matter. Now for years the war in Afghanistan has had more support than the war in Iraq, but lately one can’t miss signs that the public has started to turn. A public in transition means reporters and photographers who suddenly possess the strategic equivalent of a swing votes. So I read “bothered” as a euphemism for “moved to oppose the war,” which cumulative effect could lead to ending the war. And now the reporters, as human being have this ethical dilemma: balancing the misery increase to one already miserable family from the publication of a photograph against the potential increased misery for many families if they lose their children to a war that continues longer than it might. And we have a history. Controversial photographs certainly hastened the end of the war in Vietnam. My point, to spell it out, is that one need not necessarily invoke narcissism or career advancement to analyze this journalistic moment, but merely the temptation of activism, the tension between the human imperative and the professional one.
But even there, the option of suppressing the photo,
might read as a proactive effort to prolong the war. In that case, even from a professional ethics viewpoint, the principle of neutrality alone does not obviously prefer one choice over the other. I imagine that journalists reason: when in doubt, share the evidence and encourage public debate to inform future borderline choices.
September 7, 2009 at 7:37 am
Thanks very much your comment. I was perhaps unfair to mock the reporter’s use of the word “bothered”.
This isn’t a case of government suppression. I’m sure there would be families who would not oppose publication. This family did. And to deny them, especially when the series already included very powerful photos illustrating the death, and making a strong case about the tragedy of war, is a bit like saying that because someone’s become a soldier, he or she has lost any right to privacy. The soldier was not a public figure in that sense. (He signed on to give his life to his country, if needed, but not to have intimate images of the end of that life spread over the airwaves against the wishes of his survivors.) In terms of somehow saving the misery of other families–I just don’t buy it here. The controversy itself has seriously diminished the polemic value of the photo.. The focus has shifted from the war to the media. Also frankly, I wonder whether the whole episode doesn’t make the embedding of photographers in combat units more of an issue.