This blog post is in response to this article: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/making-sense-of-news/205841/powerful-photo-essay-on-domestic-violence-stirs-backlash/
The article deals with the age old question faced by
journalists: when, if at all, is it necessary to step in and intervene. I truly
think this issue is all grey area, there are numerous situational differences
that dictate whether or not it is right to step in. In this instance, I think
it was acceptable for Sara to stand back and continue photographing.
In large part, I believe this because of the reasoning that
she used, there was honestly nothing that she could physically do. To step into
a fight that she could not contribute to would pointless, what reason does she
have to put her life in danger? She also had nothing to do with this fight, so
again, she didn’t really have any place in being in it.
Although she could’ve seen this coming, I don’t understand
what she was supposed to do because of that. I don’t believe you can call the
police and say, I think this man may possibly hit his girlfriend sometime soon.
She did what she could, when she could.
As far as the journalistic values, I think that’s a little
bit trickier, but again, I do not think she was in the wrong. Even though the
story she was trying to tell wasn’t about domestic violence, because the story
that she set out to tell included domestic violence, it only makes sense to
include it. Was she supposed to scrap the whole story because it had this
element? I do not see why. Another alternative, I suppose is to not include the
photos of domestic violence, which I think is even worse. The domestic violence
is part of the story; it needs to be included in the story.
People naturally will feel uncomfortable when viewing
pictures of such intense nature, such as pictures of domestic violence. I can
understand why there may have been backlash. Seeing something like that is
startling and confusing, but if you take a step back and think about the
situation Sara was in, the end result was justified. Her pictures provided
concrete evidence that this was going on, without them this man could’ve gotten
away with this. It would’ve then been a tragedy if she set her camera down for
some feeble attempt to break it up. Perhaps they didn’t need to be published,
but she is a journalist, she set out to tell a story, and that was how the
story went, and so that is how she is required to tell it.
Nice. :)
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