Photojournalistic Ethics

After looking at the photos for this assignment, I decided I would run 2 out of the 6: the boy who grieves over his dead dog, and the photo of the family grieving over their drowned son (although I would crop this).

For many years I wanted to be a professional photojournalist. Specifically, I wanted to photograph war zones. I have several coffee table books that are chock full of gruesome war images. Personally, I think they are necessary to tell the full story. They are artistic, too. But I think without those images of the dead soldiers, something is missing. It's unfortunate the public doesn't usually have the stomach for it. If they saw these pictures, maybe they would rethink their political positions...

That said, I will admit a degree of sensitivity has to be taken into account when deciding to run a potentially violent/gruesome/mature photograph. It may help tell the story, as all good photographs do, but it may also harm those pictured or their relatives. That's more important in most cases.

-The 'boy and his dog' photo could run. First, the deceased isn't human, which immediately lifts some sensitivity limitations (sad, but true, I think).

-The 'drowned boy' photo could run, although I would crop the deceased out of the picture to adjust the focus on the family's obvious grief. The dead boy isn't the story int his photo, it's the grieving family. Showing the dead boy would just be insensitive.

-I've actually seen the full Bud Dwyer Incident video. It's disgusting. I wouldn't run this photo. It doesn't move the story forward and showing his brains or blood certainly doesn't help. It would just be insensitive. The story is why he killed himself, not how.

-I had a hardest time judging the morality in publishing the printing press employee photo. First, it's a damn good photo in my opinion. It captures an emotion, or lack of, that is very striking. However, I think it would be best to bypass any death-related images and just show an image of the building or a graphic or map showing readers the location of the plant or something. Once again, being that this is a murder, not a war zone, I don't think the victim's family would appreciate it.

-The boy who got caught on the fence was another difficult one. He doesn't appear to be in a lot of pain, although I'm sure it was excruciating. His facial expression shows more discomfort and impatience than anything. Still, people would probably cringe at this photo. I probably wouldn't run it.

-The Fat Tuesday photo would never be run. It is completely insensitive to the victim, with or without her face/identity obscured.

I don't think proximity has any bearing on whether or not to publish these photographs. They are all universal/national/international in some way or another.