The ethics of showing death

The images are disturbing. The twisted body of a human being flung through the air, arms and legs flailing like a crash-test dummy, and then the momentum comes to a sudden halt as a steel pole ends the flight. Within minutes, the video is online. The story goes viral and within what seems like minutes of the images being broadcast around the world, the news story reaches a finality: Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili is dead.

I easily found videos of the CTV crash on YouTube. CTV and NBC both aired the crash images on their broadcasts for all to see. A quick scan online showed that trackside pictures of Kumaritashvili’s last moments were on the homepage of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, with the Star opting for the shot that showed the impact, while the Globe took one that was a millisecond before impact.

“Before we had a media system where everything was filtered through journalists but that doesn’t happen anymore.… It transfers the responsibility to us to decide whether to watch this video or not.”

The incident raises questions about media ethics, and could be used as the basis for a great discussion in a media literacy/media studies classroom with the starting point being the following questions: What does the video say? What information does it convey? And, of course, what would you do if you were the one making the decision?

Paul Boin, a University of Windsor media studies professor, argued on Rabble.ca that the two networks wouldn’t have aired the footage had the athlete involved been a North American, comparing it to decisions not to broadcast images of dead soldiers from Iraq or Afghanistan. I don’t agree. I still see this as a news decision, although one largely influenced by the belief that the information was going to get out thanks to digital and social media, so the story couldn’t be held forever. Replaying it after confirming the crash ended the young man’s life — that is a trickier issue.

In university, I once argued in an ethics paper that a Bakersfield Californian picture of a family grieving over the body of their son who drowned moments before the photo was taken, should not be cropped, placed inside the newspaper, or given less play. I argued it should take up as much of the front page as possible because it told the story and newspapers shouldn’t protect their readers from reality. My beliefs have not changed much, but match this 2003 comment from The Independent

I believe in the power of images. I would not flinch myself from publishing any image of war, however grotesque, simply on the grounds of taste. As far as I’m concerned, the more disturbing and thought-provoking the image, the better. But I do believe that the people in the images, or their families, must be involved in such enormous decisions. Instead, we do not even establish the names they answered to in life.

The Vancouver Sun ran a story Saturday that asked the question: Death porn or sharing the news? Alfred Hermida, a journalism professor at the University of British Columbia, made an interesting comment about where the ethical decisions about the consumption and distribution images of death now lie: ”Before we had a media system where everything was filtered through journalists but that doesn’t happen anymore.… It transfers the responsibility to us to decide whether to watch this video or not.”

Ethics is a grey area, so ask yourself and your students these two questions: what would you have done? What did you do? See where the conversation goes.

A few links that may help in your decision-making process:

• “Tragedy in photos: A new standard?” (The American Press Institute)
• “Displaying death with dignity” (Poynter Online)
• “Deciding what to show and when” (Poynter Online)
• “What is news? The answer is not blowing on a whim” (From News Photographer Magazine)
• “Taste in photojournalism” (Hodges, L.)
• “Face to face with tragedy” (New York Times, via NewsOmbudsmen.org)