Death and voyeurism – not a new phenomenon

Anne-Marie Flynn

LAST week in Virginia, TV presenter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot dead while carrying out an interview live on air. Caught unawares by the horror, the TV anchor quickly cut the broadcast, but the footage that made it to air was immediately uploaded to YouTube, and soon afterwards, the killer posted his own video of the murders. Inevitably, both films rapidly made their way onto social media where they were seen – in some instances inadvertently – by millions. News outlets worldwide including a number of Irish ones subsequently included the video in their coverage.
The New York Times last April posted a video of a policeman shooting dead an unarmed man in South Carolina. Gruesome beheadings carried out and posted online by ISIS terrorists have been shared countless times, including videos of children. While a terrorist organisation seeking perverted publicity is one thing, when did it become normal for media organisations and regular Joes with social media accounts to share such chilling footage? “Sex sells”, ran the line once upon a time. But death sells, too. When did it become de riguer for us as viewers to consume it, with apparently so little thought? Are we so desensitised, or is such footage necessary to remind us that atrocities happen? Is it a question of taste, or decency, or neither?

A fine line
The phenomenon is not a new one, nor is it confined to new media. As an 18 year-old, I recoiled in horror in a newsagent’s at the front page of an Irish tabloid carrying an image of motorcyclist Joey Dunlop’s body lying prone on the ground, moments after his death. The same publication more recently, in the aftermath of this summer’s Berkeley disaster, printed on their front page a stark close-up of six body bags lying on a cold street in California. What an image for their loved ones to encounter while making their way through the airport to bring their children home. Yet, both images have proved timeless; I’m not in the habit of remembering front pages.
Where exactly is the line between good and poor taste, newsworthiness and voyeurism? Humans are by nature, curious beings. We always want to know more, to see more. Sometimes, we can’t help ourselves. And there’s little doubt that images of death, or the moments leading up to it, can be highly compelling. Some would argue that the most enduring images from 9/11 were those capturing the people who jumped from the building, moments before their death. Graphic images of the hundreds of tiny children butchered in Syria jolt us; educate us on atrocities in a way the written word never could.
But what if it’s your loved ones on the cover of the newspaper? What if you stumbled upon footage of the fatal accident of a family member, preserved forever online? How must Alison Parker’s family feel, seeing her death used for media fodder? Such exposure is potentially an invasion, a violation of both the victim’s dignity and the family’s privacy. And how do the bereaved that have lost people in high-profile circumstances feel about in-depth coverage of their funerals, like the Berkeley ones, particularly where they have expressed a desire for privacy? How can it be justified when a family’s grief is displayed for all to see, without their consent?

Hard to resist
As far back as in 1975, media critic Norah Ephron defended the publication of photos taken in Boston, capturing the moment a balcony collapsed during a fire rescue attempt and a woman fell to her death. In her essay Ephron maintained that such images should be shown, because the capture exactly what happens in reality – people die. Censoring of death by the media is irresponsible, even inaccurate, she argued. The images “deserve to be printed because they are … breath-taking pictures of something that happened”, she wrote. “That they disturb readers is exactly as it should be; that’s why photojournalism is often more powerful than written journalism.”
Would journalism be the poorer for not showing such images? Relaying funerals? I remain unconvinced. But as consumers, we get to set our own moral standards. And death, that great mystery, even among the most morally upstanding of us, can prove very hard to resist.