Graphic images in media

Should U.S. media publish graphic images of war, abortion or car accidents? Or do such images do more harm than good?

Conor Friedersdorf raises such questions in “The Gutless Press” (The Atlantic, July/August). 

He discusses coverage of the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist convicted of delivering babies alive and then murdering them. This coverage included descriptions of what Gosnell called “fetal demise” far more graphic than anything normally found in the media.

Friedersdorf points out that “members of the pro-life movement have long believed that they can win converts by confronting Americans with ‘what abortion really is’ in the most-graphic terms possible.”

On the other hand, critics of U.S. drone strikes wish “more Americans saw graphic photos of the results: the charred corpses, the severed arms and legs, the bloodied children.”

While many pro-life activists charge the U.S. media with a pro-choice bias, the fact is, writes Friedersdorf, “the American media sanitize almost all death." He adds, “During the Iraq War, an American could watch hours of TV coverage without ever seeing the dead body of a U.S. soldier.”

While the news media have grown less likely to publish explicitly violent images in recent decades, portrayals of violence in film and video games have intesified.

Why the change? Friedersdorf believes it’s about not offending the audience. “And because consumers do not want grisly images, neither do advertisers,” he writes. At the same time, the military has clamped down on access to combat scenes.

Friedersdorf notes that “other countries’ media do not contrive such a bloodless world.” He cites a study that shows that foreign media are generally more willing to show graphic images.

Susan Sontag, among others, have argued that showing graphic images might lead to other responses than “shocking people of conscience into action.” They may, in fact, inure us to horror.

Graphic images of war certainly haven’t stopped violent killings, Friedersdorf notes. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t had an impact on public thinking. He cites certain images from the Vietnam War and the photos of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison as examples.

Friedersdorf goes on to point out that “images in media determine not just what we see but how journalists describe the world, and thus what we know about it and how we talk about it.” It might be harder for the government to talk about “collateral damage,” for example, “if an article or TV footage included the image of a bloody corpse,” he writes.

Likewise, he adds, “it is difficult to discuss ‘fetal demise’ abstractly when the accompanying images show the little arms and legs that were dismembered.”

Without doubt, images are powerful. Think about artwork depicting scenes from Scripture (no photos are available): David holding Goliath’s severed head, soldiers killing infants on Herod’s orders, Jesus’ crucifixion. We may read these stories without fully appreciating their horror.

Friedersdorf concludes that “the case for publishing graphic images of killing has less to do with the merits of a specific policy view than with photography’s power to keep us from evading a subject entirely.”

We need to face what’s going on in our world, and images can help us do that.