Picture Tells The Truth

Photos are a powerful tool journalist’s use to summarize a story, highlight an event, motive people, and many other forms of visually communicating a story with viewer. When it comes to picking a photo to go with a story proper ethics should carefully considered. Intrusions of privacy or graphic images are a couple of ethical problems journalists face. As a Christian, we don’t have to exploit it, but using our faith is important to guiding our decisions and choices we make as writers or photojournalist.
Daniel Okrent makes a few solid points in the article, “No Picture Tells the Truth. The Best Do Better Than That.” Okrent states that, “The surpassing power of pictures enables them to become the permanent markers of enormous events.” This is true, because when you think back on historical moments that you read about or saw on Television,

those images stay planted in your mind. We are not always there to bare witness to these events, so we rely on photos journalist capture the truth of what is going on in the world around us. However, Okrent mentions that no picture captures the entire event therefore only tells half the story. “A picture can tell part of the truth, but not the whole truth. Editors know that. Readers and viewers should recognize it, too.”() If a photo doesn’t show the whole truth, then we should be very selective about the photos that we use to convey the event. Journalist sort through hundreds or photographs before picking one to use for a story, and sometimes the images cause controversy. Weather a photo is perceived as unethical or not, is subjective to the audience. This makes it difficult for journalists to decide what photos to use, because they are often criticized for “sanitizing” conflict if they avoid graphic photos, while at the same time exploiting the pain of others. Different cultures and worldviews may interpret the message being send by the photos differently. As journalists it is important to think of the audience and try to find a middle ground.
As an example, the image the image The New York Times choose to publish of a photo a devastated mother kneeling beside the dead body’s of many children.

The photo was used to supplement an article on the devastation of an undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean and a third of the children had died. The editor who chose the picture, Jill Abramson, said it fit the article and showed the enormity of the disaster. The photo received a lot of criticism and many said this was unethical. Yes, the photo shows devastation, but are we really seeing the enormity of the disaster or just sever dead bodies? Other photos could have been choose, like damage done to a schools or houses where children gather, but we are shown their lifeless bodies instead. To me this doesn’t show the enormity of the disaster, we know from the title that many children had died, we don’t need to see it, to know it. As a Christian I don’t think it is ethical or necessary to post pictures of the dead in the news. The only time photos of the dead in news should be posted is to server a purpose to indentify a body, much like they did during World War

II.
Christian values are humanistic, placing emphasis on the value of life and the golden rule of treating others with respect, as you would like to be treated. Maintaining integrity in both personal and a professional work place is very important to ones faith. We can use photos to show the wrong of the world but there is a line to draw when it comes to gruesome photos. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”(Ephesians 4:29, KJV) While this passage refers to mostly story content in journalism. It can apply to the photos used as well. Instead generating negative controversy with photos, why not find away we can motive people and build them up.
Using our faith to guide our decisions and choices we make as writers or photojournalist, can be important to how the people view the world through our lenses. There are times when some photos are appropriate and then times when better choices could have been made, like in the example of the dead children. We should value people’s lives like our own and treat others with respect. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”(Philippians 2:4, KJV)