Like many journalists, I'm incensed that
FEMA this week issued a "request" that news organizations not show dead bodies in coverage of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and clean-up. I join my industry colleagues in urging editors to make that decision on their own, without considering federal officials' politically self-serving advice.
Others (including several Poynter faculty members
in this article) have expressed good reasons to ignore FEMA, but there's an angle that's not been discussed: citizen photojournalism. It's not just professional photojournalists who are taking pictures in the disaster zone. Many victims, rescue and aid workers, law-enforcement personnel, medical teams, and others are carrying photo cell phones and digital cameras. And you can be sure that some of them are not worrying about issues like whether or not it's ethical to photograph dead bodies and publish the images.
Some of these graphic and disturbing images will make their way online, to blogs and to photo-sharing sites (like
Flickr) -- gaining widespread viewing. The images we'll see from citizen photographers likely will include some that are far more disturbing than what we'll see from professional photojournalists -- because traditional-media editors will screen the most graphic scenes from public view.
Ergo, FEMA's request that journalists "take it easy" with publishing images of dead bodies is really rather pointless. Such images will become public because members of the public will make them so.
Aside from the fact that a branch of government telling...
