The Ethical Line: Photography

While discussing the ethics of photographic editing decisions, I really feel that it is both a personal moral decision, as well as the decision of an editorial board as a whole, taking into consideration several factors:  the audience of your publication, the newsworthiness of a photo, the implications it makes, privacy for those photographed and the possible consequences from publishing each picture.

The group of photos presented here definitely raise a lot of questions.

In the first group of photos of the suicidal politician, the story that surrounds the images is very newsworthy, primarily because of his status of being a public figure.  While perhaps I would not personally want to publish the last two more graphic images of him sticking the gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger, I would definitely pick one of the first two images that capture the man in moments where he was determined to end his life.  The last two seem to be just unnecessary, because the readers will know what happened after reading a headline or first few grafs of the story.

The politician was the one who invited the press into the more private moment of his own death, eliminating the question of whether or not he wanted his death to remain a private matter.

The next series of photos were more troubling to me, and well- just depressing.  

A little boy losing a beloved family pet isn't really something I consider as something to publish in a periodical.  Just leave him out of the papers.  It's not a huge deal to the rest of us, but he doesn't need a reminder of his dead dog and the moment he saw him.  It's not really newsworthy anyways.

I would not publish the second photo of the grieving family over the death of their son.  He drowned tragically.  This is moment the family realized the loss.  If this were part of some larger tragedy such as a national disaster, war or any other larger issue, then perhaps the public would need to get a glimpse into the reality of a situation.  However, in this case, I'm sure the family would never want to see this moment again and the readers don't need the grim photograph in the papers to know how horrible this was.

Because the next photo of the factory shooting is newsworthy on a bit of a larger scale, I would consider publishing the photo of the slain employee.  I would first look through all the photos to see if there was another, less graphic image to print - one that perhaps doesn't show a victim's face.  This could be part of a larger issue, just as mass shootings present-day raise questions of gun control and even perhaps school and work safety.  Sometimes, it is important to not sugarcoat the reality of a situation, but still maintain a level of respect and anonymity for the deceased.  If concerned for public reaction, but still insistent in using this exact photo, perhaps place this image somewhere other than the front page where it could be viewed by those not even purchasing a paper, but just passing by - such as a young child whose parents do not want to expose their young one to graphic images.

Photo number four would be fine to print in my opinion.  It's not really major enough for the front page, so this less violent image would be appropriate with the right story, but I'm not really sure how newsworthy this is.  Also, perhaps the boy doesn't want this published out of embarrassment or shock, so perhaps it's not even worth publishing.

Typically, sexual assault is considered an extremely private matter that a victim barely even wants to discuss, much less see the photographs of it taking place.  My only conflict with not printing this photo is that I do feel that this is an important issue to be aware of, and something that future party-goers need to be alert about.  Also, her face and breasts are covered, so her identity would not necessarily be discovered.  I honestly don't know what I'd do.

There is no direct set of guidelines for making these decisions.  It's important to just take each photo and decide on a case-by-case basis where you and your publication stand on the issue of photographic ethics.  

I would never want to have to make these decisions.