Not all readers of The Times-Dispatch like what they see.
Or what they don’t see.
On Wednesday, the issue arose again, as it has repeatedly since Gulf War II began, after publication of a photograph on Page One. The five-column image was of an Iraqi woman in apparent anguish. The caption reported she was screaming at a Baghdad hospital where her wounded husband and son had been taken.
Among those who called to object to the picture was Marie Seeds of Richmond. She complained that as the “people in Iraq are tearing down statues of Saddam Hussein, you select this photo. . . . It’s liberal demagoguing.”
A Mrs. Wood, who left a voice mail, was upset by the photo: “I know the woman’s crying because her family’s dying, but could you please allow us the pleasure of a picture of our soldiers coming in with flowers thrown at them? . . . Could we celebrate a little?”
Similar complaints arrived, including that of a Chesterfield County resident who asked what criterion was used for selection of the picture. He suggested that those wounded were shot because they had been firing at U.S. troops. The T-D could have used a “less disturbing” picture, he said. (The caption included no information on how the two had been wounded.)
Another photo published inside the newspaper the same day was of a Jordanian journalist displaying a poster illustration of President Bush’s face – a Hitler hairline and mustache added – imposed on a figure in a military uniform decorated with swastika, American flag and Star of David symbols. The journalist was protesting the bombing of the al-Jazeera television network’s office in Baghdad, in which a Jordanian television reporter was killed.
Betty Huffman of Midlothian found the photo offensive. Journalists, she said, “have no right to complain if they get injured in a war zone. What did they expect? You have poor taste to put it in our paper.”
Catherine Murrell of Richmond weighed in on another side of the issue. In an e-mail, she charged that the newspaper has focused on U.S. casualties and the economic impact of the war. “The facts concerning civilian casualties and suffering have been obscured or omitted. . . . We need to know what our bombs are doing.”
She cited The Independent of London as an example of a newspaper “willing to tell their readers the full story,” and she attached an opinion column by Robert Fisk, identified by the newspaper as a “commentator.”
He wrote that “the innocents are bleeding and screaming with pain to bring us our exciting television pictures and to provide Messrs. Bush and Blair with their boastful talk of victory.”
(Ombudsmen with two other London newspapers have conflicting views of Fisk. One said “he has consistently, relentlessly, reported the human cost of the conflict and the effect on ordinary Iraqi people.” Another characterized him as “far too-Arabist, pro-Arafat, anti-Israel for me.”)
Other photos published since the fighting became intense have provoked readers to complain of T-D selections. A Page One photo of an Iraqi soldier blindfolded and in wrist restraints, one U.S. soldier holding him while another trimmed the restraint straps with a large knife, was condemned as giving an impression that U.S. troops ignore Geneva Convention rules and abuse prisoners. Another of a U.S. soldier carrying a small Iraqi boy injured during a battle was faulted as an attempt to win sympathy for Iraq.
Most readers of this column will recognize that the complaints reflect the opinions on both sides of an ideological divide. As usual, Americans are free to disagree, both among themselves and with editors of their newspapers.
The picture of the Iraqi woman in anguish was taken by Jerome Delay, an international photographer for The Associated Press. He is French and based in London with his wife and two teenage daughters. He has studied in the United States at the University of Missouri.
In an e-mail from Baghdad on Wednesday night, he wrote me that “pictures, especially from war zones, should provoke debates. For our duty on the field is to raise the level of awareness as much as it is to inform.”
The war hit home with him especially hard on Tuesday. “A very dear friend,” Taras Protsyuk of Ukraine, a television cameraman for Reuters news agency, was mortally wounded when a round fired from a U.S. tank hit the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. “Taras . . . passed away on my lap on the way to the hospital,” wrote Delay.
He said he spent “the rest of the day witnessing the constant flow of victims arriving at Al Kindi hospital . . . some soldiers, many men, women and children.
“I could really relate to the pain of the victims and their families more than I’d ever in over 15 years of war coverage.” He said he had no further news of the woman’s husband or son except that both were unconscious and suffered multiple injuries.
“I’m glad your newspaper fronted that image, for war is not a high-tech video game but a terrible thing where people die on both sides.”
As for the photo selection process here, Perk Gormus, T-D director of photography, said even “the editors at The Times-Dispatch don’t always agree on what [photo] is best. That’s why we have the A1 supervisor – he makes the final decision.”
Gormus said that supervisor, a senior news editor, must consider “not only what is the best photo but what goes with the story of the day and what has been used in previous days [for balance]. I think he does a good job.”
Some images in the daily photo offerings are “brutal and vile,” said Jim Caiella, associate director of photography. “So, what do we show our readers? Do you need to see [bodies] to know people have been killed? Should we avoid those in favor of a pretty, passive image?”
The history of American journalism says newspapers won’t publish photos of charred bodies atop a burned tank and are reluctant to use close-ups of grossly maimed civilian victims. While some will argue that such pictures show the reality of war – media in foreign countries are more likely to display those images – the often-repeated line in the U.S. is, “Our readers don’t need to see that.”
Readers and viewers in their reactions thus may affect what images appear in newspapers and on television. Some might say that’s the way it should be. Some might disagree.
AP photographer Delay in his e-mail wrote, “I wish yesterday I’d taken pictures of Iraqis celebrating, but where I was and what I experienced that day didn’t call for celebration.
“Today, I photographed an Iraqi man kissing a U.S. soldier. Another reality.”
That picture appeared on Page One of Thursday’s Times-Dispatch.
