4 ms·
When MH17 was shot down, an Australian paper published a large picture on the front page which showed actual dead bodies tangled in the wreckage. No blurring o
by cyberferret 8y ago
When MH17 was shot down, an Australian paper published a large picture on the front page which showed actual dead bodies tangled in the wreckage. No blurring or obfuscation. You could clearly see a young woman's arm held up as if to ward off an impact in the foreground. Highly distasteful and inappropriate IMO.
- FabHK 8y agoIndeed. I wouldn't be surprised to encounter such stuff on Twitter, or the Indonesian/Malaysian/Australian/UK yellow press, but the BBC?
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoMH17 was shot down. Someone actually had to lock an anti-aircraft system onto a commercial airliner and give the order to fire. I don't disagree with putting something graphic on the front page in that case. The public deserves to know what happened and whitewashing it just serves to protect those who committed that crime. With a purely accidental tragedy I think it's a little different but not much. I don't see the point in trying to bubble wrap the world. Shit happens. Sometimes it will be messy and ugly.
- whamlastxmas 8y agoBubble wrapping has a lot of value. There's nothing I can to stop accidental airplane crashes. It's not healthy for for many people to be surrounded by negativity and violence. It serves no purpose other than making me feel bad
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoNot reporting also limits backlash when preventable things happen. I don't see running a graphic picture to be substantially different than reporting the details on that guy the Sauidis sawed up. One man's bubble wrap is another man's sweeping things under the rug.
- craftyguy 8y agoIn the case of the plane that was shot down, you can lobby your government to actually give a shit and do something about it. But hey, it happened to them and not us, so why should we care, right? Graphic imagery showing that they are humans too might help people understand that it's not a 'us vs. them' thing.
- echelon 8y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted. The public needs to see graphic imagery of humans causing other humans to suffer. We need to know the harm we inflict and we need to turn the raw emotion of pain and disgust into action. I don't think it's appropriate to show blood and gore when there's nothing at stake, but these are not such instances.
- cyberferret 8y agoI don't think it is appropriate to put it on the front page of a newspaper though, because there is no control over who can see it. If your husband/wife/son/daughter/parents were killed in that crash, would you want your young child walking past a news stand in the street to see their mangled bodies in a field displayed for all and sundry to gawk over? Would you want the rest of the world to see and remember your kin like that? Somewhere in the mix, there has to be an element of basic human dignity and respect towards deceased people, and their loved ones who have to come to terms with that fact.
- grecy 8y agoYou just described the front page of the newspapers in countries like Peru basically every second day showing bus crashes.
- smacktoward 8y agoThese used to be staples of US newspapers too, so much so that journalistic slang had its own term for them: the "bus plunge story." A good exploration of why they were so prominent and how they've become less so in modern times can be found here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-bus-plunge-story.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/11/the-rise-and-fal...