How do you feel about newspapers printing pictures of the dead?

[sp1814]

Remember the British papers who rushed to print pictures of Michael Jackson on the autopsy table?

Now a daily tabloid has printed some pretty distressing pictures of miners massacred by South African police.

What do you feel about this? Is it okay to show a dead body if the faces are pixelated?

If it's okay to publish pictures of the deceased Michael Jackson, then why not the shots of Diana after the car crash?

[Gromit]

There are double standards at work. We will quite happily show dead Iraqis or Afghans but we will not show dead British troops or videos of attacks on them. They exist. The internet is full of ambush videos which the militants use as propaganda. But British television would never show them and we condemn channels like alJazeera that do.
It seems if the deaths are far away, and there is no one at home to offend then we will show dead people on the news. I suspect this will start to blur as most of us have a camera in our pocket and photos and film will become more readily available and normal news channels become sidelined.
Very many people in the UK watched the Saddam Hussain execution video. They looked at the paparazi photo of the dead Princess Diana. The Jackson images. There is an audience for this kind of thing.
The problem is when it changes from genuine reporting of the news, where I believe it is acceptable, to sensationalism and almost pornography for a craving public.

[youngmafbog]

Gromit, the difference is that if a uk soldier is shown on uk TV then there is the potential for further upsetting families/friends/relatives. Showing dead from other countries this possibility is much reduced.
I thin kthere is a time and place for it. To get across atrocities a picture paints a thousand words and can have high impact. Picures of MJ or Diana /I dont really feel have a place. Personally I did not watch the Saddam shuffle, it holds no interest to me.

[anotheoldgit]

sandyRoe

/// I think it was The Observer published a picture of an Iraqi soldier charred to a cinder during the Gulf War. I believe using that image was justified. ///

Can you explain further Sandy, there must have also been dead (charred to a cinder or not) soldiers of other nationalities apart from that Iraqi, so why focus on just this one?

[sandyRoe]

AOG, the image showed a man who had been sitting in the turret of an armoured car which must have been engulfed in flames. He had been reduced to a charred lump.
It was a powerful image and the Observer ran an editorial explaining why they had used it.
The fact that he was an Iraqi is immaterial. I believe that one picture showed, better than any other I've seen, the real horror of war.

[sandyRoe]

In the first Iraq War you'd have been hard pressed to find images of dead or wounded who weren't Iraqi.

[marval]

No it is not okay, who wants to see them. Tell a story if they must, but there is no need for the pictures.

[anotheoldgit]

sandyRoe

http://www.britains-s...s.com/gulf/peters.gif

/// This is an image taken of Flight Lieutenant John Peters while being paraded on Iraqi TV, soon after the Tornado GR MK1 he was piloting, was shot down, during a low level day-light attack on an Iraqi airfield. His navigator, Flight Lieutenant John Nichol, was also made a POW after their aircraft crashed. Both survived torture and beatings from their Iraqi interrogators and guards and were eventually released with other Allied POWs at the end of hostilities. Bravo Two Zero (SAS) Patrol prisoners: Mark (POW), Andy McNab (POW), Stan (POW) and Dinger (POW). Other prisoners known were: Joseph Small and Troy Dunlap ///

/// In the first Iraq War you'd have been hard pressed to find images of dead or wounded who weren't Iraqi. ///

Perhaps that was because it would have been bad for moral?

Here is the roll of honour of the British dead.

http://www.britains-s...rs.com/gulf/Roll.html

[emmie]

recall seeing a photo of a WW2 soldier who was laughingly sawing the head off another soldier, who was still alive. that photo will haunt me to the day i die. It was quite a grainy picture, so didn't realise at first what it was, some things you just can't take pictures of.

[maggiebee]

Personally never buy newspapers, there is enough gruesome footage on the TV.

[Duncer]

em10 - the ones that haunt me a the little Japanese girl running away naked after the atom bomb was dropped, and the footage of a soldier shooting someone at point blank range (either Korean or Vietnam War), and watching the grey matter spewing out as the victim fell. They truly do capture the horror of war better than a thousand words.

[emmie]

Duncer, you sure that picture wasn't the very famous one from the Vietnam war, where the Americans had dropped napalm, a little girl was caught up in the blast and was burned badly, a truly ghastly picture.
It doesn't stop wars though does it, no amount of photographs, it continues unabated.

[Duncer]

It may well be em, and although it doesn't stop wars it helps bring home the true horror to those who may well just hear of "tales" from distant lands. Having worked in casualty through Northern Ireland's troubles I have watched patients brains slide onto the floor as we lifted them off a trolley, and watched as pieces of bomb victims were brouhght in, so I know full well how vile it is, but others may not, and I believe we all shoud.