How graphic is too graphic?

Arielle Emmett has written a sombre and thought-provoking piece for the American Journalism Review, discussing the role and impact of graphic photojournalism in the wake of the recent Haitian earthquake.

With natural disaster and war comes violent and bloody death; in some cases on such a scale that it’s hard to take in.

The role of the photojournalist is clear: to document the disaster and its effects. To convey to the rest of the world the conditions that the survivors are living in.

The images that emerged from Haiti in the days and weeks following the quake were horrific. They were published in many newspapers, magazines and web sites, to a degree that’s unusual. This was a disaster of such magnitude that it needed reporting in this way, says Emmett.

Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Patrick Farrell is quoted saying:

“It was the worst thing I’d ever seen. I was thinking if it gets worse than this, it’s the end of the world. You can’t tune it out; until you’re looking at your pictures on the computer, you’re thinking this is a movie, it isn’t real. I’d say there were not enough images of Haiti; I would say you can never have enough. People need to know that the suffering continues; they’re suffering just living a normal life.”

It’s worth spending 15 minutes reading through the whole piece, which does an excellent job of presenting a variety of different views of the subject. Ultimately, getting this sort of photojournalism right remains, as it has always been, a matter of reaching a very fine balance between the duty to report what’s happened, and preserving the dignity of those who have suffered most.