How Photojournalism Killed Kevin Carter (2015)
all-that-is-interesting.com
all-that-is-interesting.com
“Max Hastings, writing in 2018, noted that Lém was in civilian clothes and was alleged to have just cut the throats of South Vietnamese Lt Col Nguyen Tuan, his wife, their six children and the officer’s 80-year-old mother.[7]
According to Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, irregular forces are entitled to prisoner of war status provided that they are commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry arms openly, and conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. If they do not meet all of these, they may be considered francs-tireurs (in the original sense of "illegal combatant") and punished as criminals in a military jurisdiction, which may include summary execution”
So by the circumstances, the execution was likely completely justified and in keeping with the Geneva Convention, but the photo did not present that context. As such, it served as North Vietnamese propaganda and undermined the entire US war effort.
The casualness and lack of ceremony of the execution is a key part of the impact of the photo. Was means the casual extinction of huge numbers of lives. Modern war means this happens at a distance and is comprehended statistically. "Another few hundred people were fed to the meat grinder today." Photographing it reconnects people to the dead as humans.
As for "undermining the war", America's role in Vietnam was always on a really shaky moral footing since it was essentially colonialist; it was always right to question this and "undermine" it.
How is undermind the US war effort in Vietnam a bad thing in and of itself? That war and the justifications for it undermined the US in a way that still keeps giving. The protest sparked good things and bad things -- the rationalizaton of the war produced only extremely bad things, fit to kill a persons soul and intellect, with god knows what half-life. I didn't downvote you, but I disagree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2VwFDV4-g McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War
If that had been known right then and there, it would also have "undermined the war effort", too.
It's much better than the fictionalized version that TFA references. Although it doesn't seem to be widely available so it might be a bit of a chore to hunt down.
and
> The act of being an outsider aiming a camera can be a violation of humanity. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person’s predicament.
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> I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
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> I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer.
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> But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there – to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on – to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference – to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.
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> Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.
– James Nachtwey
Most newspapers have strict rules around reporting suicide specifically to reduce copycats, not out of respect for the dead.
Were it not for the horrendous coverage they get, we likely would not have seen nearly as many. So what’s really going on?
This media industry absolutely knows the ramifications of such publicity, and has known what it would feed into from the beginning. They can control themselves. They do it every day. They reduce some catastrophes to a blip or nothing, and amplify others.
Why are active shooter incidents granted such coverage, by a large, tightly controlled apparatus?
That is not the same for someone in a critical but reversible or preventable state, their misery is intrinsically a public cry for help and relaying it is similar to shouting "someone is drowning over there", calling attention to their urgent need. For large scale, social issues, an argument can be made that the public good realized outweighs the rights of the anonymous individual used to ilustrate the issue.
As a species, we are hardwired to seek and react to such messages of vulnerability - hence the temptation for the first type of exploitative, undignified depictions of gore.
What journalists should (and many do) think about is the impact on the good reputation of the subject. But the child is certainly not victim of any kind of libel here.
I think this is a good solution to the smartphone age questions of "revenge porn" and "creep shots", taking and disseminating photographs of factual events is essentially an act of journalism and should be subject to journalistic ethics.