Reporters…Senseless
by Segen • May 17th, 2008 at 2:07 am • 7 comments
Many of you probably have heard about the recent deadly earthquake in China. I was looking at some photographs of the situation on the New York Times website. I came across this photograph of two boys trapped in the rubble. The caption for this photo is “Boys trapped under a collapsed building awaited rescue”
This photo of these two boys who are not being helped by the photographer reminds me of artist Banky’s rendition of a similar theme:
Let’s stop treating people–especially children–like news stories. They are humans–who are suffering and need assistance more than they need glamor shots.
Comment by thetodd on 17 May 2008 at 6:01 am:
I once read that reporters and photographers are trained to avoid providing aid because it affects what the recipients will say, do, and look like, and it prevents them from being objective in some cases.
While that’s sometimes true, I can’t see why not to make some exceptions. In a life-threatening situation, there will be no interview and nothing to be objective about if the other person dies. Even in a situation involving a significant pain but little risk of death, I would think that alleviating the pain would be a higher priority than insuring a high quality of information.
In that particular picture, it is not clear if the photographer can help at all. Perhaps he also saw that, while the kids were trapped, they were not in much pain or danger of death (I don’t know if they actually were) and felt that he had time to take a picture before helping. Yeah, it’s quite rude and opportunistic to take a picture before helping, but without the photographer, there would be nobody there to help at all, which is an even worse alternative. Also, perhaps the weight they were trapped under was too large to be lifted by one additional person.
By the way, this behavior doesn’t just hurt those who don’t get rescued – the reporters and photographers can suffer a great deal of stress and sometimes even kill themselves.
Comment by JayBandit on 17 May 2008 at 6:30 am:
Did it ever occur to you that there were people already trying to help those children? It wasn’t like they were just laying on the ground where someone could just walk up and pick them up. They appear to be back under a pile of rubble that is inherently unstable and could collapse. I don’t think it would benefit the situation if the reporter went in there, disturbed the rubble, and ended up killing all 3 of them.
Rash decisions aren’t necessarily the smartest thing in extremely dangerous situations.
Comment by Hanno on 17 May 2008 at 10:07 am:
If I remember correctly there was the perfect example of this back in 1985 when a girl named Omayra Sanchez was trapped by a mudslide in Colombia up to her neck in mud. A photographer took a picture of her before she died looking up into the camera. It’s really a beautiful picture, but people went apeshit because a bunch of reporters were surrounding this poor girl while she died and they did nothing in the name of objectivity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omayra_S%C3%A1nchez
Comment by kofi the why so quick to draw the cyncil conclusion, hanno & segen? on 17 May 2008 at 3:04 pm:
The Omayra Sanchez doesn’t seem to support the proposition that reporters are hartlessly standing by snapping photos without even considering helping (and neither does the original photograph). According to that wiki entry Sanchez was found early on my rescuers who were unable to free her from the rubble. In fact she was initially reported on when she was alive. And I agree with thetodd’s explanations as to why this photographer may not have been playing superhero.
Comment by illinikc33 on 17 May 2008 at 8:18 pm:
How ridiculous. Right. I’m sure you have a firsthand account from a witness that said the reporter did nothing to help these kids, and that there was no one presently helping them. All they need is some random, clueless photographer walking into a precarious situation and doing something that ends up killing them. Absurd.
Comment by thetodd on 17 May 2008 at 9:09 pm:
OK, this individual picture has been beaten to death, but the questions raised are still interesting (at least to me).
Does anyone know what exactly journalists are trained to do in situations like this?
Does anyone have any ideas about striking the right balance between the health of people in poor or disaster-stricken areas and obtaining objective information and striking photographs (which might inspire people to provide more aid), while accounting for the psychological impact of the journalists’ actions?
Comment by tet on 18 May 2008 at 9:40 am:
Ok, folks, SOP for injured people–you do not move them without a trained medical professional unless they are in clear and present danger of dying or receiving further injury if they remain.
If I saw the boys trapped and there was emergency workers coming, I wouldn’t touch them either, and I’m not heartless.
Tom