|
Helsinki Edition
October 1998
About Us
Index
News
Features
Focus: Europe
Columns
Letters to the Editor
Editorial
Links
Archive |
Blood at breakfast
Whether horrible pictures should be printed or not always was and will remain a major ethical discussion. Nevertheless there is a gradual shift in the media towards more acceptance of bloody photos in the dailies.
In the Netherlands the discussion about photos blazed up again about two years ago, when the Dutch daily De Volkskrant printed a shocking photo on the front page. It showed a dead man in former Yugoslavia hanging over a fence. "Actually it's since we had a new chief editor about four years ago, that we gradually allowed more controversial or even horrifying photos on the front page", says pictures editor Edie Peters. "Most of the time it's because we expect something to happen. In the case of the picture of the Bosnian man the events in Sarajevo lead to the international attack on Bosnia. We think it's important to have discussions about such photos to really think about what's going on."
In most European countries an unwritten law is that you don't print the really ugly pictures on the front page to spare the 'sweet, young readers' from seeing them first thing in the morning. Another unwritten law is, of course, that a paper covers all news that's important, bloody or not. A gory image on one of the inner pages along with the continuation of the story is usually more acceptable.
"We try not to publish photos that might lead to people throwing up their breakfast on their kitchen tables" says Örjan Björkdahl, deputy pictures editor on the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. Still Swedish readers were close to doing just that one morning last September. On the front page was a photo of a little baby, all soaked in blood, the dummy beside him on the ground. He had been killed during the recent massacres in Kosovo.
"We can't have rules saying that dead babies can't be showed on the front pages. We must be able to report on horrible events through photos" adds Arne Jönsson, pictures editor. The paper does not have general rules on when to publish and when not.
"But we are trying to be restrictive. Horrible photos must have a clear purpose. The photo of the baby had. The massacre in fact was that cruel", says Arne Jönsson.
By publishing the dead baby-picture Dagens Nyheter took the responsibility of making people aware of what was going on. Like the saying goes: a picture can say more than a thousand words.
Most of the time papers print an awful photo just to make a point and to make people aware. But there will always be the more sensational ones that only publish them to get the public to read their paper. Hopefully the editors of those newspapers won't think they can appease their conscience by saying that they don't usually allow such pictures on the front page. It would be nice if they finally came forward and said that they just want to get more attention to their 'revolutionary' daily by printing a controversial picture now and then. According to Edie Peters, pictures editor of De Volkskrant that's even not the way to get more papers sold. "Photos of happiness and laughing people are far more appealing to the public."
Sara Bengtsson
Marjolein Eijkman |
