By Isaac Massaquoi
Imagine this for a moment: a member of your family or a very close friend is killed in a road accident. On the morning of the next day, you see the gory pictures of the incident splashed across the front pages of national newspapers. How would that make you feel? Let's even say you don't know anybody in the pictures published in such pornographic details, how would you react?
About a week ago, a colleague journalist based in New York, took to facebook to express his disgust at the way his friends treated pictures from a ghastly accident at Orogu Bridge, just outside Freetown. Aroun Rashid Deen was really hurt. He couldn't understand why they published pictures of the wounded, dying and dead in such detail. One is tempted to ask what those who published the pictures wanted to achieve.
In my comment on facebook, I agreed entirely with Aroun that the pictures were unnecessarily too graphic and those who published them, displayed complete disrespect for the dead and their families. Many of the other comments followed along similar lines. So why were the pictures published?
Let's go back a few weeks and put the spotlight on the incident at Anasrulschool where a pupil was shot dead during a few hours of a near breakdown of law and order in the areas around the school. As we now know, the pupil was killed by a bullet fired by a police officer. So despite frantic denials, police have now arrested one of their own and I imagine he will be put on trial and probably convicted, sacked and jailed. With that Francis Munu would hope to draw a line under the issue and move on.
Well not so fast I dare say because the rest of society will continue asking pointed questions about command and control during such civil disturbances and why those who deploy the young and largely inexperienced police officers are always protected from prosecution or public reprimand. Anyway, this is something I will deal with on another day. Let me quickly return to subject of this piece.
A handful of newspapers published graphic pictures of the dead boy with the bullet holes in his body clearly visible through his blood-stained shirt. The picture was consistently published throughout the period of the unrest and indeed until the police were forced to retract their earlier claim that the boy was stabbed to death possibly by rogue traders around the school. One of the editors who published the pictures told me he wanted to give his readers a clear view of the young man shot dead by police. He told me he couldn't have properly reported the incident without the pictures in such detail.
I feel the pictures were unethically shot and the editorial decision that went into publishing them in the way they were, is faulty. If, according to what my editor friend told me his motive was merely to illustrate the story, then like the other colleagues who published in such detail, he went too far. He clearly intruded into the grief of the families who lost loved ones at Orogu Bridge.
I recall another accident along King Harman Road to the west of Freetown where a taxi car killed some people. I followed the coverage in two newspapers and this was how it went: the first paper published one pictures of paramedics attending to the injured on the roadside. So reading that paper left many pleased that the emergency services were on the scene in good time and that made a difference. No dead bodies were put on display for breakfast viewing. The paper reported the story, created the necessary mental picture of people in distress and needing urgent help, without publishing a single picture of a dead body.
The other paper published a picture of one of the accident victims with his neck trapped by one of the vehicle's wheels. Even in its third generation, the picture clearly showed the anguish on the face of the man perhaps in the final minutes of his life. I raised the issue with the paper's editor in a friendly chat and I got the tried and tested reply. He said he wanted to demonstrate the extent of human suffering caused by the many road accidents taking place around the country. That may be true because hundreds of people died in road accidents alone last year and it's right that newspapers focus on that to get the authorities to act against the causes of such accidents. But imagine how far my second editor friend went just make the point. It was totally unnecessary and the publication may have caused a lot of emotional damage to the families of the accident victims.
I am sure those who published pictures from the Orogu Bridge accident in such gory details on facebook to warrant the professional intervention of Aroun were not journalists. And this is one of the issues to consider in this debate about the ethical questions around publishing pictures of people in such difficult circumstances. Today technology has changed the game completely and with some disposable cash flowing in some pockets and cheap cameras and mobile phone all over the place many people are busy taking pictures of everything, everywhere and what happens once those pictures are taken is another matter entirely. These days, more often than not, those pictures end up on facebook or some other social networking site to feed the curiosity of the world.
I have to say that from what I have been seeing in some of our papers, there's no guarantee that even journalists will exercise the necessary ethical restraint when such pictures land on their table from their reporters or one of the growing band of citizen journalists all over our cities.
Here I quote Aroun Rashid's post on his facebook wall that triggered this piece:
There has been at least one posting on Facebook of what appear to be dead people including children, lying on the ground, said to have died during a road accident at a bridge in Jui close to the capital, Freetown on Tuesday. In as much as we want to bring to the attention of our friends and others on Facebook of such happenings, we must be mindful not to abuse the dignity of such victims when these things happen by posting pictures of their disfigured remains, lying on the bare ground. It is disheartening to see pictures of dead people including children being paraded on social networks. There is nothing picturesque about it. Please!
The ultimate question now is what can regulatory bodies like the IMC do to preserve the dignity of the dead. The IMC code condemns such publications in very strong term. I know that from time to time the commission has reprimanded and even fined media groups for such violations.
But in my view, fines and reprimands can achieve very little against a media machine that feeds on the spectacular in times of cut-throat competition. It really comes down to the editor who makes the final decision on such pictures being published empathising with those dead children and women at Orogu Bridge and their families. That extends to the citizen journalist who writes a blog on the various social network platforms now used by millions around the world.
(C) Politico 28/11/13
