I see dead people. On the news. And it sucks.

I feel like showing pictures of dead bodies on TV or on the Internet is really disrespectful and disturbing. At the very least, online, there should be a warning before you click about graphic images, and only people who actually want to see something like that would see it.

Two recent events come to mind: Muammar Gaddafi and Michael Jackson. I have thought I was clicking over to news stories - today just from Google News to CBS' site - and bam, pictures of corpses.

I get that we have a free press, and I totally get that we want to see proof of certain deaths, like Gaddafi or Osama Bin Laden, but it just seems like the media, especially supposedly respectable outlets like CBS, could find a way to handle these images with more dignity and warning.

All in all, I think that, as human beings, we should not desensitize ourselves to images of death, especially graphic and violent images, but these pictures, shown again and again, do just that.

Is anyone else bothered by this? Is it me or is it more prevalent these days?

I think we are actually so sheltered from dead bodies these days that it is a shock to see them.
During the Vietnam War, we saw atrocities in living color in our living room every day, thanks to a much more unrestrained news media of that time. People like me turned off their tv's... You could even see these photos in the Weekly news magazines .. full color..
all i can tell you is.. turn off the TV.

I agree with Mimi -- though I don't watch television much these days, there was very graphic coverage (both television and still photography) during the Vietnam war era.

If you look at the history of war photography, you will find some very graphic images from a long time ago.

Coverage of events like 9/11 was very restrained, I thought (and probably appropriately so).

I would suggest avoiding television news for the most part.

Is there a difference between one and many?
Lets see if I can explain what I mean - when I see photos of Holocaust victims, I still have to keep myself from being physically ill and stop myself from crying. When i see Qaddafi - I find that morbidly curious.
Then again, I find Qaddafi morbidly curious even when he was alive. I am not appalled by his dead body (I actually haven't seen it, I've only heard talk in the hall at work about his death).
I think a photo of his body - who care's?
photos of human atrocities on large scales - maybe that's sort of a good thing, to drive it home?
But, I asked a random guy at work, and he said when he sees piles of dead people, they are no longer people to him. whereas Qaddafi is identifiable as an individual, so more upsetting to him.
I know, I just rambled...

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Originally Posted by TsPoet

Is there a difference between one and many?

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That's a very interesting question.

A second question I would raise is whether there is a difference in still photography and video.

I remember watching CNN very late at night back when it was a relatively new station. I was watching live footage of a hostage situation and they showed the bad guy walking out of the store with a shotgun to the head of the hostage, a moment later you could see the bad guys head explode as he fell to the ground. A police sniper had gotten a clear shot and took it.

I remember feeling stunned, I had just seen another human being die. As a former medic I'd seen many many dead people, but only watched a few die and at those times I was working feverishly to prevent that outcome. It was surreal.

It's all very well telling people to turn the tv off if you don't want to see it but I was confronted with the face of Gaddafi yesterday on the BBC homepage when I opened it to check the local news and weather. I was not impressed and did complain to the BBC about it.

We are sheltered. Those images do have to be accompanied with contextual appropriate information. Otherwise it's just images.

As a child and teen, how I even understand the atrocities of Auschwitz if I didn't at least see a few photos? Or even what happened with bombing of Hiroshima.

I also remember as a child occasionally seeing dead bodies on tV during Vietnam War.

I don't agree with the established press doing anything that means constantly flashing images like that every hr. or even several times per day.

Am I traumatized? No, but became more sensitized at that time as child that it truly motivated me to read more about some of the "crap" during WW II to understand...and hope it is never repeated again.

It does become problematic with digital cameras, social media dissemination of images. So that facet is problematic.

I don't think it's anything new. It's just a demonstration of an ugly side of humanity.

Historically, executions (whether legal or extralegal) were social events. True or false, I remember being taught in middle school history class that picnickers set up camp to watch the first Battle of Bull Run.

People subjected to industrialized medicine are indeed insulated from death, to all of our detriment, but I don't think those are the same forces at work when a political assassination is sensationalized on TV. IMVHO, the deaths that are ignored by the TV are at least as important as the ones that are replayed over and over to the tune of "Buckwheat Has Been Shot."

So is it the images of the actual corpses or do you feel that the media is being insensitive by sensationalizing someone's killing?
I worked in nursing homes with the elderly and people often died. I often went to say "goodbye" to someone if I had heard that they just passed away and the funeral home had not arrived yet. It's natural to die.
I find that the way the media treats it is disrespectful and sensationalizes it for their ratings. That's what I find offensive. Not the actual images of dead bodies.

It doesn't bother me. It's part of life. I agree it's sensationalized at times, but, war is war, people get shot, and there's an unbelievable amount of violence in the world. Not acknowledging it is like sticking your head in the sand. You can turn the TV or computer off, of course, but it reminds me of a friend I had years ago. She never watched the news because "it was depressing." Well, OK, but if you are not informed, how can you help the world change?
I don't know. Maybe having a son in the military has hardened me. And, I'm a news junkie and I could never not watch.

Maybe it's just me, but in my head there's a world of difference between an image of a corpse vs. a video of someone getting his throat cut, complete with spurting blood...

Still, I agree it's tough. It's the act that should outrage us, not the broadcast of the act.

I'm really bothered by random people taking photos of bodies. Twice I've seen bodies recovered from the river. While they were on the dock waiting for the medical examiner, a lot of passersby took pictures. The bodies were covered, but still. It seemed rude to photograph them.

I was also bothered by people taking photos of the World Trade Center site while the body recovery was still going on. I was quite vocal about that, too. I'm sure many tourists decided I was a crazy lady.

Granted, any given photo probably contained nothing disturbing, but the idea of people doing that seemed awful to me.

In both of these cases, legitimate news photography wouldn't have been disturbing. Perhaps I'm illogical, or maybe old-fashioned. It's a different world when most phones have a camera, and everyone is a photographer.

Truly, Pam I agree that it should be only the police, coroner (medical examiner) and accredited journalists who are allowed to take the photos.

It's bad enough the sensationalism is among the press.

Worse when it's bystanders who just want to get attention for their pics of a horrific tragedy among their friends/whatever.

What is most disturbing is how high technology in war is used to target for bombing and shooting. People at the controls in ...a room. They never see who they kill. That's pretty sick. Therefore one does not face the tragedy in front of their face.

yea, so what if the killers get traumatized? Isn't that what war is about in terms of the after-effects, among other things?

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

Truly, Pam I agree that it should be only the police, coroner (medical examiner) and accredited journalists who are allowed to take the photos.

It's bad enough the sensationalism is among the press.

Worse when it's bystanders who just want to get attention for their pics of a horrific tragedy among their friends/whatever.

What is most disturbing is how high technology in war is used to target for bombing and shooting. People at the controls in ...a room. They never see who they kill. That's pretty sick. Therefore one does not face the tragedy in front of their face.

yea, so what if the killers get traumatized? Isn't that what war is about in terms of the after-effects, among other things?

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Seriously? A young person is called by their country (whatever country) to serve, they answer the call, and their trauma elicits a "so what" from you? Unbelievable!

You can disagree with war all day long, but don't degrade those who serve. It sucks so much to be pulled away from everything that matters to you in life, to be put in a position to do the unthinkable, and then have to live with the aftermath. If you want to toss off a blase "so what" save it for the idiots in power/authority who send kids to take care of their business.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

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If you want to toss off a blase "so what" save it for the idiots in power/authority who send kids to take care of their business.

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I'm sorry I didn't mean to toss it off casually. True the politicians (and those who profit from war, munitions, etc. And those who have financial interests to protect, ie. oil), have someone else do the dirty work..

But only if people understood living with the consequences, thereafter by taking an enormous risk.

I know you are not a blasé person, ShoootingStar, but as a military mom, I kind of feel the same way as Pax. I am generally a very liberal (very) person, but I think of the high tech aspect of war as something that might actually save my son's life.
Personally, unless you have actually been in a war, I don't think we can imagine what the people think like. I know my son says, "It's my job," when he is asked about stuff like this. He is incredibly level headed, been deployed to war zones 3X (and 2 others, that were not war zones), and no signs of PTSD.
I don't know why people (bystanders) would take pictures of dead people, like Pam describes. It just seems strange to me. What kind of need does that serve?

Thanks for your kindness, Crankin.

Doesn't have to be war to experience the trauma of seeing a loved one's body or seeing an accident where someone got killed.

Just last night, a person who I know face to face in Toronto, witnessed a skatebroader death, where he got crushed by a dump truck. She herself is a victim of medical malpractice, where now she is permanently disabled by an incorrect surgery (for cancer). She was a cyclist and a mother of 2 adult children.

So a 2nd different trauma for her for this incident she witnessed:

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Posted 21 October 2011 02:59 PM
i was on king s.t waiting for the streetcar around 6.20 am, streetcars are slow even in the morning and its usually busy enough but not that busy.. a young man was skateboarding past me as i stood there, i glimpsed at him, looked down at my gym bag, looked up for the westbound streetcar and saw, a garbage truck turn south on spadina, and the young man go under.. it was like he was sucked under the wheels,,, i do not know how the driver did not see him crossing nor the young man , if he tried to stop i missed it...
he was crushed.. i rushed over.. i was about 20 meters away.. and the driver was standing there, he just stood there, people behind him were rushing out of their cars and one lady was screaming... i could not see the man, just his broken skateboard, he was under the wheels..
it is so heartwrenching, thinking of his family.. did they know, where was he going, all these questions ran through my head it felt like an hour i stood there trying to figure out where he was..
lucky we have bicycle police all the time downtown and spadina is a busy road, with chinatown just the next three streets up... the firetrucks are near and were there right away, i could do nothing, i felt helpless other than telling what i saw, a youngish man, about my sons age... the skateboard, the speed he was going

i was told to leave... they found him under the back corner wheel, he did not make it

hug your family, you just never know..

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In my view, Shootingstar makes an important point. With the high tech war, it is far too easy to be removed from the consequences. What comes to my mind is the video from the US armed forces that came to light a couple of years ago after some operation in in the middle east (I don't remember where now), when a 'convoy' was bombed. The commentary from the people behind the controls in the operation was more appropriate for playing with a video game. It was appalling to hear.

Going back to the original issue of corpses in the media, in the Gaddafi context, I was more stunned by the raw brutality of the scenes. Not so much the corpse per se, but what is considered a 'celebration' in some part of the world (I am glad not to inhabit): guns blazing in the air, dragging a body.

To the question of video versus still photography, I find stills have a much bigger impact on me. Most recently, I became ill after seeing a photo of severely burned victims (alive and walking) of the Hiroshima bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I did not know that pictures were taken within the first few hours of the explosion. I later read about the photographer. He narrated that he found it incredibly difficult and almost disrespectful to photograph the victims, but felt it was his duty to document. Even then, he did not develop the film until a year later. Nowadays, with digital pictures and the daily media overload, it is hard to imagine such pictures would not be shown right away.

Interesting that we are discussing this right now. One of the Occupy Wall Street protesters climbed a statue in our park and spent most of the morning up there.

I have a good view from my living room so I took some photos -- mainly because it is interesting to see what the police, especially emergency services, do in these situations.

Even though there's almost no chance he could get hurt with such a huge police response (and cushion-y things on the ground), I wondered if I would keep photographing if he did jump or fall.

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Originally Posted by pll

To the question of video versus still photography, I find stills have a much bigger impact on me. Most recently, I became ill after seeing a photo of severely burned victims (alive and walking) of the Hiroshima bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I did not know that pictures were taken within the first few hours of the explosion. I later read about the photographer. He narrated that he found it incredibly difficult and almost disrespectful to photograph the victims, but felt it was his duty to document. Even then, he did not develop the film until a year later. Nowadays, with digital pictures and the daily media overload, it is hard to imagine such pictures would not be shown right away.

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I agree that still photography has more impact.

One of the NY Post photographers who shot a lot of people jumping on 9/11 claims he never even looked at the ground. While there were a lot of photos of people jumping, I never did see any photographs of bodies on the ground.

I can't even imagine the impact of what you saw at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Here is the testimony of the photographer in Hiroshima, Yoshito Matsushige:

http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/yoshito.html

He was able to take only 5 pictures. He did develop them 20 days later and they were confiscated when he attempted to publish them.

ETA: The link above does not include the pictures, just written testimony.

It's all about context and respect.

Images in history books, like the holocaust pictures, are there so we will (hopefully) not repeat past errors. I do not have a problem with that.

The images I have been seeing lately on the news are more for sensation, to get people to look and hopefully sell ads. I get the majority of my news from Internet sources, and I strongly feel that, if you are going to show the picture of a dead human being, you should only show that to people who actively want to see it. That is, there should be some sort of <click here for graphic photo> warning. Not only am I not seeing that, I have even seen teasers for other stories that include images of dead bodies.

It's boggling that we think wardrobe malfunctions warrant huge fines but using images of the dead to sell news is ok.

Believe me, Shooting Star, I know trauma is not just from war. Most of the work I do is trauma work and it is even more difficult now that I am working with families, kids, teens. It is generally unbelievable what people do to each other and this has nothing to do with war or politics. But, for some reason, I am able to deal with it, as there is a very high rate of secondary/vicarious trauma in therapists who do this work. It's probably the same reason my son can come home from a war zone and be "normal" (and I do mean this in the most general sense... :) ). It's really the way our brain is wired.

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Originally Posted by pll

Here is the testimony of the photographer in Hiroshima, Yoshito Matsushige:

http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/yoshito.html

He was able to take only 5 pictures. He did develop them 20 days later and they were confiscated when he attempted to publish them.

ETA: The link above does not include the pictures, just written testimony.

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Thank you. This is interesting.

My 8th grade teacher made us all read books about the holocaust and they were filled with photos. At about the same time my mother had purchased the book on Hiroshima by John Hersey. As much as we want to protect ourselves and our young, some of this is important to see.
But I still haven't seen the nasty shots of Ghadafi's body !