Friday, 20 July 2012

Is it farewell to decent journalism?


By Aliyu Musa

A couple of years ago I was running a seminar for my undergraduate International Studies class in which the students were, themselves, making presentations on violent conflicts around the world. One of the presenters warned at the very beginning of his talk that his slides contained disturbing images requiring viewers’ discretion. I immediately intervened to advise those with concerns that they could be excused from that part of the seminar. What struck me most about the episode is that the warning came from a teenager who at that time was only trying to transit from A Levels to the university system (and exposure).

Contrast the above scenario to the one where you suddenly log on to your Facebook page or email account or access the online pages of some media only to be hit by pictures or video clips showing mangled remains of victims of accidents or violent attacks. You do not get any warning. And you are left to deal with the gory images and the emotions they might draw from you all by yourself.

Decency demands that anyone making available some information, whether in the form of texts or visual images, should warn beforehand if they thought the information would adversely affect those they are making it available to or anyone that might access the information through them.

The student who warned about the potential danger of the pictures in his slide has, at least, discharged a moral responsibility because it was right to do so. It is not that those circulating disturbing or obscene images are unaware of the damage they cause, but they have chosen not to be bothered about the implications.

One of the negative effects of an increasingly wide access to new technology, especially the internet, is that it contributes to the problems journalism faces today. This is because anyone anywhere who believes he is a journalist in his own right can broadcast or circulate any information. But it is more worrying that some journalists are involved in this vulgar violation of the ethics of journalism.

On the day the April 2011 post election violence erupted, a picture of a woman’s remains was shared on Facebook. The corpse, which looked like that of a victim of a fatal accident, was divided into two at the waist. Following an enquiry, a number of people testified that they had seen the picture a few months earlier and that when it first appeared it was claimed that the woman was run down by a train.

One of those circulating that picture was, sadly, a journalist. And even when repeatedly reminded that he/she was contributing to the problem by peddling misinformation, the journalist insisted he/she had done nothing wrong.

When the Dana Air mishap occurred last month I read a friend’s status update warning that he would delete from his list of friends anyone that posted pictures of victims’ burnt remains to his wall or tagged him when sharing such images. Although I stopped short of copying him, I clearly understood his predicament.

The recent fuel tanker fire accident in Ahoada, Rivers State is another case where some overzealous wannabe-journalists swarmed the internet with pictures of the burnt bodies of victims. But some of them are actually practising journalists; those who did not mind circulating some of the goriest images one could ever imagine.

In journalism visual images, like texts, are a representation of the world or a situation and act as a bridge between the reporter and the audience. They are used to independently illustrate a story sometimes even much better than texts. And often they are used to complement texts in order to give the reader a clearer picture of a story or information. But this depends on how the message is conveyed, usually by means of the relationship created between the source and target (reporter-audience/reader).

At the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda the international media had wrongly assumed that it was a tribal warfare between the Hutu and Tutsi and showed less interest in the conflict. At the mercy of the killers were ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu who were left on their own until British journalist Nick Hughes’ picture taken from the top of a building, showed how a man and his daughter were savagely butchered by Hutu extremists. It was that picture that galvanized the world to act, even belatedly. It was the only picture that acted as a clear evidence of the severity of the cruelty neighbours meted on neighbours, including women and children.

Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer award-winning photograph of a dying, starving child stalked by a vulture had the double effect of exposing the graveness of the situation in Southern Sudan then and the vulnerability of journalists in the face of issues requiring prompt decisions especially where it’s between one’s professional calling and moral responsibility.

But Carter took the picture and, probably, left the child to die in the hands of the patiently waiting vulture who would end up feasting on the child’s remains. And whereas the picture brought him fame, it failed to bolster him to face a world that put his conscience on trial for failing to discharge a moral responsibility.

An age-old yet often downplayed debate is how to reconcile the rigidity of a professional calling with a moral responsibility. Journalists have time and again found themselves stuck in-between the two: not knowing where professional rigidity ends and where moral responsibility begins. For instance, as much as it is important to reveal the graveness of a problem by publishing certain images or information, journalists owe their audience/readers a duty to consider the best options of doing so without inflicting further injury on the target. This is one reason why a sufficient knowledge of public interest journalism is a prerequisite, which employers should encourage their editorial staff, especially, to acquire.

As a means of self appraisal, journalists need to begin asking themselves, and sincerely too, what role the media should play in crises situations. Whether visual images are necessary for concrete illustrations in order to accelerate positive reactions (from politicians/appropriate authorities) or they are used to haunt the audience/readers.

That a greater percentage of those involved in this act comprises non-journalists does not mean that we, as journalists, should allow ourselves to be bitten by the copy-cat bug. Someday, maybe, there would be some form of active regulation that would reduce the frequency of unethical practices. Until then, our consolation is that ours is a noble profession. As a friend recently put it, it is our job to jealously keep it pure.
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