Is it Immoral Publishing or Typical Journalism?
How should editors and journalists go about publishing “disturbing” or violent pictures of
victims? This question has been the focus of many discussions all throughout America in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I chose to recently research this topic and was given two
readings to accompany my research: “How Newspapers Decided to Run Disturbing 9/11
Photos”, a research journal by Renee Martin and Brain Kratzer, and “Victims of Violence”, an
excerpt from Paul Martin Lester’s book, “Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach”. In their
journal, the Kratzers discuss editors’ roles as “gatekeepers” and what their role is in publishing
these pictures. They focus mainly on the process and research of publishing these images
without really taking a side on their own. They bring up editing dilemmas, which includes debate
about whether a picture of video which is deemed “disturbing” should be aired or showed.
Furthermore, “disturbing images” were defined as photographs that showed people trapped in the
upper floors of the WTC or jumping/falling. In Lester’s book, he brings up different
philosophies that encompass the posting of these disturbing images: The Hedonistic and Golden
Rule philosophies. The first states to do others as you would have them do to you, the latter
states that dramatic pictures should be published because they powerfully communicate aspects
of a story. He also harshly picks a side and argues that the media can definitely be more
courteous when it comes to publishing the photos of victims. Both articles tried to answer these
two questions: what kind of ethical decisions should be made about these images and what do
people have the right to see and what should the media do about releasing these images? Both
articles collectively made me ponder exactly what benefits and disadvantages can come from the
publishing of disturbing images and persuaded me to find a way to somehow change the way this
process is handled. I agree with the authors of both articles when they state that publishing
pictures deemed disturbing should be filtered from some people but I think there should be a
different method of doing so. I feel like there are better ways to go about doing this.
Although both the Kratzers and Lester recognize that there are problems with the
publication of disturbing images, only Lester seems to feel strongly against it. Through their
research, the Kratzers discovered that editors published the disturbing photos because they
helped get the message across to the readers. Lester states that it is the right of journalists to
decide whether to publish the pictures, but that they should be mindful of how people will react
to them. Lester also says that “ethical problems arise for photographers and editors because
readers are also repulsed by such events” (Lester 460). The Kratzers somewhat agree but point
out that some editors “[choose the pictures] specifically for the shock value because ‘we needed
to shock the nation a bit and deliver the story to them as blatantly, as raw, as it was, and this was
