When news photos are too graphic to publish

PHOTO | JAMES QUEST A photo taken on September 30, 2013 shows the collapsed rooftop parking at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.  AFP

In Summary

• Whether or not to publish images of death that are too graphic is mainly an American concern
• In Kenya, people don’t seem to be so squeamish and sensitive

By PETER MWAURA
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One of the things President Uhuru Kenyatta said in his defence of Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo was that he had visited many countries “but I have never seen television footage aired live as people are being shot”. But many Kenyans did not want to hear that.

“Uhuru, tell us if you have come across military and security men stealing from those they go to rescue!”, said one social media cynic. Said another detractor: “Mr President, do not create diversionary tactics. The issue is about if or not the military looted at the Westgate mall. (You) should be praising the media for exposing our rot.”

President Kenyatta’s appeal for the media to be sensitive to the families of those killed in the attack, and not to “give too much publicity to the attackers” fell, largely, on deaf ears.

Many Kenyans are not ready to listen to such arguments. Whether or not to publish images of death that are too graphic is mainly an American concern. But even in the US, the concern is mainly shown with regard to American victims, not foreign ones.

For example, the American media had no problem publishing a graphic picture of a Vietnamese general executing a suspected Viet-cong on the streets of Saigon in 1968 or, more recently, the disquieting images of Haitians killed in the 2010 earthquake.

In Kenya, judging by the large crowds that quickly gather at scenes of tragedies, we seem to relish viewing bloody and gruesome scenes. And, by and large, when the media publish such images, we savour them. Unlike in the US, Kenyan editors do not, in the main, have to contend with readers and viewers angered by graphic depictions of death.

CODE LARGELY IGNORED

The Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism in Kenya provides that the media should avoid publishing pictures that could possibly harm the persons concerned, and to avoid pictures of grief and disaster. The provision is largely ignored.

In the US, the media hold that disturbing images can have a negative impact. People can be harmed by explicit visual journalism. Therefore, in general, they do not publish images of people being killed, corpses, or severed body parts. They believe it’s insensitive and dehumanising to do so.

In Kenya, people don’t seem to be so squeamish and sensitive. And the media seem to take advantage of this insensitivity to publish shocking images that do not advance the story but to attract audiences (for commercial interests).

President Kenyatta was thinking like the Americans. He was thinking about the side effects of depicting death. By depicting the Westgate executions, he seemed to be saying we are giving Al-Shabaab terrorists exactly what they were seeking — publicity, satisfaction and heroism.

And we are also disregarding the feelings of the families of the victims who will have to live the rest of their lives with those images permanently in the public domain.