Chapter 8: "Picture This: The Ethics of Photo and Video Journalism"

"Our unwillingness to allow visual journalists the same conventions as print journalists says something fundamental about the role of visuals in the news." - page 196, Chapter 8: "Picture This: The Ethics of Photo and Video Journalism"
 - In one of our very first classes at the beginning of the year, we looked an image presented in Case Study 1-A where two girls, a two year old and her 19 year old godmother, were falling from a fifth-floor fire escape. In looking at this image, we discussed the ethical dilemmas presented by the Boston Herald photographer deciding to shop and shoot the pictures, and whether or not it was ethical for the newspaper to run the picture of such a traumatic scene. The class was relatively divided, with some saying they would publish the picture and some saying they would not. If you take this story and convert it be told solely through print journalism - that is - written up as a story, then does an ethical dilemma still exist? Many would argue no, because the newspaper is reporting on a story that occurred within the city, largely due to faulty fire escapes. It's a sad story regardless, but when you show a picture that rawly depicts the heat of the moment, it's hard not to feel a deeper disturbance when you're eye-witnessing two girls potentially falling to their death, with one actually dying, than it is to just read about it in the newspaper. It is a dilemma such as this that explains why a quote such as the one in this chapter makes so much sense. Visuals are simply worlds different than words - they tell stories that often stay with us long after we've stopped looking. Journalism holds immense power, but it also holds different types of power - kinds that dare us, alarm us, stop us in our tracks, and make us feel emotions that we might not have thought possible. It is all in the perception of what we see - that is the key word: "see"; we are born seeing before we speak and read, it is our nature to respond more deeply to visual cues than it is to verbal or printed cues. I think that realization offers innate importance when understanding the ethics of photo and video journalism. I could go on to debate the ethics of the certain case studies presented in this chapter - all of which present grappling situations, but I felt it was more appropriate to entertain a reflection of this quote and give a bit of insight into how visuals can truly transform the news we absorb.