capturemag.com.au
[capture] sep_oct.19for the mass murder of tens of thousands of people; that those
photographs could give the South Sudanese Government the reason and
the credibility to storm the camp and shoot everyone inside.” On the one
hand, while Abbott refers to the blatant nature of the Australian
Government’s use of “geographic censorship” in choosing to place our
primary detention centres on the remote islands of Manus and Nauru, at
times, a need for self-censorship is also clearly warranted.
The political divide
In agreement with Abbott is The Guardian’s Head of Photography,
Fiona Shields who maintains the idea that while it isn’t necessarily the
role of the photojournalist to self-censor, there are times, and often a
whole host of reasons, why it may simply be necessary. But as opposed
to the role of photographers on the ground whose primary purpose is to
provide as broad and as contextualised a viewpoint as possible, there is
at times a stark divide between what a photographer submits to their
picture desk or their wire agency and what will ultimately end up
within the publication’s pages or website. Across her editorial and
curatorial responsibilities at The Guardian, Shields’ duty is to portray a
well-rounded visual synopsis of an issue or event, but, as she says, is
always cognisant of the need to make content approachable and
digestible. “As picture editors reporting the news, we are often
presented with images which we choose not to publish. It helps when
illustrating stories to engage, and not repel the reader or viewer, or no
one will access our journalism,” says Shields. “For example, we rarely
publish photographs of dead children or of graphic injury. We may not
identify someone in a picture if we think doing so will lead to them
being physically harmed, or where their dignity is compromised.”
Clearly, it is warranted to consider omission of such graphic images
which do little to further the precision of a story and may simply end up
deterring potential readership, but do the politics and ideology that both
fund and inform a publication such as The Guardian impact the perception
of such curatorial teams in determining exactly what is right and wrong to
publish. As Shields continues: “We avoid using images that glorify an act of
terrorism. We take care over pictures that may be seen as sexually
inappropriate or exploitative. These decisions are not taken unilaterally, but
usually result from discussions among senior editors, based on our code of
ethics, as each such publication needs to be considered within its own
unique context.” However, one need only to turn to the most recent array of
terror acts around the globe to discern that the definition of “terrorism”
varies wildly depending on which newspaper one reads. The same can be
said for “sexually inappropriate” acts.
An example that may stand as representative of the relationship
between ideology and the editorial process occurred in September of
2015 when The Guardian was among newspapers and news websites
around the world that published the shocking images of the body of
three-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a beach near a Turkish resort
at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. As Shields recounts, “When
the pictures landed in the newsroom, it seemed clear that this was a
huge moment in the long-reported crises which was set against total
political inertia across Europe. This scene of immense human tragedy
was weighed up against issues of privacy, dignity, and the risk of
repelling the reader, but it was felt that in this instance the pictures had
the powerful potential to effect real change, to illicit public sympathy
and anger enough to effect a political change.” Of course, the political
change in question here would be to loosen regulation on immigration
and therefore mitigate the potential for similar tragedy in the future – a
LEFT: Gay Pride Parade,
California, 2019, for Vogue.
RIGHT: Feeling Hollywood.
BELOW: Eye of the Sun.©^
SAVA
NNAHSPIR
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SAVANNAHSPIRIT