Thoughts on AP photo

Hello Franklin and JOUR E-120 classmates,

I read the stories and links about the AP photo of the Marine killed in Afghanistan recently, so wanted to comment about that. This situation is a perfect example of a thorny ethical issue that many journalists and editors face nearly every day. Like most legal cases, the particulars of the situation strongly influence how one decides whether the decision to publish the story/photo was ethical or not.

In this case, I would side with the AP that posting the photo was appropriate and justified. It was one of many pictures from that battle, and it provided an indirect way of revealing the casualties incurred by American troops in that ongoing war. Looking at it closely, I find that photo to be a rather subtle image - one sees a body lying sideways on the ground, with a slight hint of red (blood) revealed, but we don't see Cpl. Bernard's face nor a full view of his shattered legs from the RPG explosion. Unless one had read the full text story before seeing the slideshow, as I did, you wouldn't necessarily know that this was a scene of a fatal injury. In other words, I think that the scene is rather ambigous until you know the details of what happened just before and after the picture was taken.

I can understand Secty. Gates vehemently criticizing the AP for running the photo, although I sense that he was doing that largely to confirm the family's deeply held feelings about the death of their son. However, in my view, the photo does not come across as purient or exploitive of the soldier's death, and in some way I think it is an important element of the written story and the photo montage, because otherwise it would come across as a detached and somewhat abstract set of military activity photos. If the photographer had taken a close-up picture of the wounded soldier just after the blast, or as he lay on a stretcher, that would be excessive and unjustified, for sure. But since it was one picture, among many, of that particular firefight, I find that is has the necessary context to understand the incident.

I realize that this question relates to an even more complex issue, as to whether it's better for the soldiers fighting the war that we, the homefront public, get a deeper appreciation of the suffering and sacrifice they make for us through pictures of the war, or whether they would prefer us to not see the gory details of what they are facing there. My sense is that it's better for us, and them, to know the true depth of what hazards they confront, and thus press our government officials, and military leaders, to do whatever they can to make the soldier's plight a bit more bearable, or safe. The Afghanistan conflict will probably continue for a while longer, and I think that the best way for us to "support the troops", is to have some sense of what they're dealing with, even if it's indirect, as suggested by the AP photo.

-V.Morrill