To publish or not is the question
by
AYDOĞAN VATANDAŞ*

This single image captures the struggle US troops continue to face eight years after they entered Afghanistan. It also spurred some Americans to question their government's foreign policy.

Some newspapers did not hesitate to run the photo. However, some did. Some said running a photo like this was unethical. They said it would inflict more pain on the grieving family to see their dead relative brandished across newspapers.

Following an internal debate, the AP released a photo that depicts a young marine shortly after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan. He lost one of his legs in the attack and died during surgery.

“‘What it does is show -- in a very unequivocal and direct fashion --the real consequences of war, involving in this case a US Marine,' said Santiago Lyon, the director of photography at the AP. ‘And that becomes very personal and very direct in some way, because we have a name, we have a home town, we have a shared nationality and we have, to a certain extent, a shared culture and some common values',” wrote David W. Dunlap in The New York Times' Lens Blog.

“His father, John Bernard, a retired Marine first sergeant, was shown the picture and told the AP that ‘by distributing this photograph, we would be dishonoring the memory of his son,' Mr. Lyon said. … On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates intervened personally. He contacted Tom Curley, the president of The Associated Press, to ask that the AP. ‘honor the family's request to not have the photos published, out of respect for their son,' said Maj. Shawn Turner, a Pentagon spokesman,” Dunlap reported.

I think this issue raises three main sets of questions from four different perspectives, one from the point of view of the photographer/news agency; another from the point of view of the military; another from the point of view of the subject or family of the subject; and finally the point of view of the public:

1) What obligation does the press have to those it represents? What is the point of no return when going after a larger truth?

2) Is there loss of integrity or dishonor in portraying a soldier's physical death? Who is defining this? What is behind this? This is important because I think this is about the morality of the act of capturing the death on film and the ownership of the images themselves.

3) What does that image of death actually represent? Is this about an individual, a political statement or is it about the human condition? What can it ultimately achieve in the eyes of the public?

Freedom of the press in the US is under the constitutional protections pertaining to the media and published materials.

One of the most important democratic values of America is freedom of the press, the ability to report and represent visually our world and the policies the government is pursuing. The brutality of war should not be hidden from sight as the government has been attempting to do by efforts to censor the visual coverage of the victims of war, be they civilians or soldiers. Compared to the Vietnam War, the photo and documentary reporting of the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan has been extremely limited since journalists have become subject to military regulation and further compounded by the drastic reduction in US foreign correspondents working in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that both parts of the war should be shown through graphic images, the courage of the soldiers as well as their death.

As it is stated in a very successful book “When The Press Fails,” which was written by journalism professors W. Lance Bennett, Regina Lawrence and Steven Livingston, sometimes dramatic, spontaneous events do embolden the news media to bring challenging questions into mainstream discourse. Events that arise unexpectedly, off the beaten track of established news, can support relatively independent and critical news narratives, especially if they produce provocative visual images. When a dramatic event breaks that practically demands media attention, journalists often begin looking for ways to make sense of the event for their audiences and they may turn to sources off their regular news beat for help in this regard.

Let's remember the Abu Ghraib photos for example. Even though the photos were not captured by professional photographers, we had a similar debate on these images as well. It seems reasonable to assume that the Abu Ghraib photos could have occasioned a cascade of more challenging and independent news coverage that put the events in the larger context of detainee treatment at various sites of the War on Terror and raised critical questions about the war in Iraq.

So it is obvious that these photographs are reason to question government policies. As the very remarkable cultural critic Susan Sontag wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 2004: “The issue is not whether the torture was done by individuals … but whether it was systematic. Authorized. Condoned. … The issue is not whether a majority or a minority of Americans performs such acts but whether the nature of the policies prosecuted by this administration and the hierarchies deployed to carry them out make such acts likely. Considered in this light, the photographs are us.”

What does that image of death actually represent then? It represents us. It reminds us of the absolute truth that each of us will face one day even though we do not want to accept it. Is this about an individual? Yes it is, but it is also a political statement because it also reminds us of why the soldiers die and the political reasons behind the deaths.

I think there is no loss of integrity or dishonor in portraying a soldier's physical death. And I think nobody has a right to define this in that way.

Let's go back to our subject. It is certain that these photographs of the casualties also raise questions about the foreign policy of the Obama administration, just as the photographs taken from Abu Ghraib raised questions about the Bush administration. But isn't one of most important goals of a free press to scrutinize the policies of our elected governments?

We cannot talk about democracy when there is no press freedom and the visual coverage of the war is censored.

Julie Jacobson, the journalist who took the photograph, wrote: "Death is a part of life and most certainly a part of war. Isn't that why we're here? To document for now and for history the events of this war? We'd shot everything else thus far and even after, from feature images of a Marine talking on a SAT phone to his girlfriend, all the way to happy meetings between Marines and civilians. So shooting the image was not a question.”

“To publish or not is the question,” she said.

“Then there's the journalism side of things, which is what I am and why I'm here,” she stated. “We are allowed to report the name of the casualty as soon as next of kin has been notified. It is necessary and good to recognize those who die in times of war. But to me, a name on a piece of paper barely touches personalizing casualties. An image brings it home so much closer. An image personalizes that death and makes people see what it really means to have young men die in combat. It may be shocking to see, and while I'm not trying to force anything down anyone's throat, I think it is necessary for people to see the good, the bad and the ugly in order to reflect upon ourselves as human beings.”

“And with great respect and understanding to all the opposing arguments to publication, I feel that as journalists it is our social responsibility to record and publish such images. We have no restrictions to shoot or publish casualties from opposition forces, or even civilian casualties. Are those people less human than American or other NATO soldiers? So, debate amongst yourselves or maybe just to yourself. Send me your thoughts if you like. Enlighten me if you disagree," Jacobson says.

As a career journalist (and former military student), I tend to agree with Ms. Jacobson's point of view. I believe that the photograph of the casualties helps us to better understand the complicated situation in a place few of us will ever see. The most important goal of the press is to inform its readers in a balanced way, not to shield them or overexpose them to particular images and stories. An informed society thrives with a press that can report the truth, letting the people decide for themselves what is good and what is bad. The press has to take into consideration the public as a whole, not the reactions of a single soldier's family -- whether they feel honored or dishonored. Surely it is very painful for the family of the soldier. However, the photo also places great honor on all three men pictured in the photo.

As Thomas Jefferson said to William Green Munford in 1799, "To preserve the freedom of the human mind ... and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement."