Another round of campaign finance disclosures are coming in. Candidates who aren’t running this year were supposed to file yesterday, and today is the pre-primary deadline for candidates on the primary election ballot, as well as for corporations and non candidate committees.
I think I’m going to wait until the deadline passes to begin to sort through the data.
Today I’m sharing a thought-provoking article from the Guardian, “The Bystanders: photographers who didn’t step in to help – in pictures.”
Eight photojournalists explain why they didn’t intervene and try to help in situations where they photographed people in danger, and their short stories are accompanied by their photos. Each of the photographers grapples with the ethics of watching and reporting instead of acting to help.
It’s the same situation faced by all journalists. Are we just detached observers, “objective”, reporting what we see? When are we called to do more than this? Are there times that we should put down the camera or the notepad and just pitch in as a person rather than a reporter? Or is this bearing witness the highest calling?
Reading these accounts, I’m torn.
Here another useful discussion: “Off the Sidelines“, American Journalism Review
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Thanks, Ian. And then there’s this one: http://awesomeplanet.blogspot.com/2008/06/kevin-carter-photographer-commits.html
Oh, God… and are we not also some kind of vultures looking on? Ignorance is bliss.
there is no easy Absolute answer. there never will be.
if journalists do not stop and help people sometimes, the journalists will become part of the story, like it or not.
if journalists always stop and help the people in danger, say goodbye to journalists.
when to stop and help people is a judgment call. to work around that is to obliterate the concepts of judgment and choice and common sense.
that said ………
if the issue is a critical emergency, with no time to second guess, you have to go with your gut. there’s no other way.
……..which is another reason why I like reading your blog. 99% of the bloggers out there who call themselves journalists ‘need’ to interject themselves into the storyline. At that point the story become tainted, almost scripted. You have enough professional wherewithal to know where there is a line in the sand. Or at least pause and ask the question.
The answer to your question is not an easy one. The situation with Katrina is difficult to comprehend. Many of the battle hardened ‘A’ team reporters were already somewhere else, assignment in hand, passport in back pocket, reporting from some far away front line. The ‘junior varsity’ left behind had never had this to experience beforehand. It is understood that perhaps journalistic lines might have been crossed.