I walked up to Trolley Square this morning to photograph whatever was happening at the scene of last night’s massacre. A couple of photographers approached me and we shared stories and thoughts about last night’s shooting.
One photographer who was there last night in the aftermath of the shooting told of a man who approached him looking for his wife. He wanted to look through the photographer’s lens, which was zoomed in on the mall where the body of a victim was visible. When the man couldn’t see clearly through the lens, the photographer brought up the image on the camera’s LCD screen. Seeing the body, he said, “That’s my wife,” and collapsed in grief.
A short time after that, another photographer from another news outlet was shooting from the same angle with the same victim’s body visible in the mall. A man approached this photographer and put his hand over the lens. When the photographer objected to being obstructed, the man said, “That’s my wife.”
Both of the photographers in these stories are also husbands and fathers. I know them both to be far from heartless. But these two stories bring up serious questions of compassion vs. coverage. How do we as news photographers balance our feelings of sympathy for the victims of tragedy with the importance of our job, which is to be the eyes and ears of the public, who (me and you and all of us) have a real need for this information?
Have no doubt, the story of this shooting, with all of its tragedy, must be told. There were clearly troubling photos that had to be taken. Violence, no, murder on this level involves all of us. I know that in our newsroom these photographs prompted a long conversation between editors about how they should be published. The taking and publishing of graphic photographs at the Tribune is never taken lightly.
How should journalists cover these moments of tragedy, especially when the pain is so fresh that the bodies are still uncovered? I can’t give you a simple answer.
