Peter Howe, who covered civil wars in Northern Ireland and El Salvador as a photojournalist and who wrote Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer, has an op-ed article in USA Today about the editorial choices involved in deciding which photos to publish in a newspaper to tell the story of the war.
The decision to show dead bodies has always been a lightning rod for public opinion, often polarizing it between those who believe we should see war’s reality and those who feel such images are inappropriate on the pages of items that enter the home. …
War photographers face ethical hurdles much greater than their peers working on other subjects. The sights they record are inherently gruesome and disturbing, and they intrude on moments of tragedy and despair more intense than in any other area of photojournalism.
I touched on some of these issues in my most recent column for OJR, Portraying the Graphic Face of War.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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