A friend of mine from high school recently died in a car accident. I had asked someone to save me a copy of our town’s local newspaper so that I could have the obituary.
I picked the newspaper up off the kitchen table and immediately dropped it as if it had burned my hand. What I hadn’t been expecting to see was a photo of my friend’s silver minivan smashed into the back of an 18-wheeler.
I see photos like that all the time, but I never thought that I would recognize the vehicle on the front page.
It really got me thinking, does the media go too far? This is not the first occasion on which I’ve asked myself this question.
Over the summer, I recall seeing a photo of an Iraqi man carrying the body of his young nephew, wrapped in a white sheet with cuts on his arms and legs.
He had been killed by the insurgency while running toward American soldiers who were handing out candy. I was shocked that the editors of the paper had allowed it in.
It’s not that I want to be naive and believe that these things don’t happen, or distance myself from them. I’m not asking anyone to shelter me from the harsh realities of the world. I simply have a newfound sympathy for the parents who see these photos and think, “that was my little boy.”
It was enough for me to know that my friend was dead. I read the state trooper’s report. I did not need to see the scene of the accident in order to make it real for me. I now find myself recreating events in my head, wondering what ran through his mind or whether he was in any pain.
In these situations, it’s probably healthier to maintain a certain degree of ignorance.
Disregarding any legal limits on what kinds of photos can be published, what are the limits of decency? There seems to be a fuzzy line of demarcation existing somewhere between what is ethical and what is offensive.
But who is the real culprit here, the media or the consumer? Perhaps our insatiable lust for the news and all the gruesome details have caused us to become so disaffected, so numb to these images.
Or maybe media conglomerates are hunting for shock value, something sensational enough to boost circulation and make them the “most watched news program in America.”
I can’t in good conscience tell you that I’ve stopped watching the news or boycotted any newspapers because of it. I have to get the news somewhere, and I’m not sure that CNN or the New York Times are going to feel the pinch if I shut them out of my daily routine. But I can say that these images disgust me. I stop dead in my tracks and feel sick to my stomach.
Of one thing, I am absolutely certain. I’m never going to look at a photo like that the same way again. I cannot allow my eyes to sweep past it disinterestedly as if it were the daily stock report.
It’s always going to register with me that somewhere someone is looking at a photo of a friend’s car flipped over on the freeway.
Cynthia Halatyn is a sophomore political science major. She may be contacted at [email protected]
