Photo+Journalism
The difference between ETHICALLY publishing photos of grisly scenes of death, war, and the likes in a newspaper and printing photos of Carradine’s dead body is that generally, the former images are shown to make a true statement about a situation that might not be adequately described in words. For example, the image of Napalm Girl in the Vietnam War was not the top editorial choice because it portrays child nudity, but newspapers chose to run the photo because the news and events it relayed was absolutely necessary for its readership to see. The ethical dilemma was taken into consideration, but the need for the world to know the truth overrode the danger of a controversial image.
However, in most cases, photos of dead celebrities, crime scenes, and whatnot are generally not essential pieces of information that the public MUST know. Instead, it is merely invading the privacy of the decedent and his family. In this case, the world’s need to know about the crime scene does not override Carradine’s right to privacy. Especially since he was in private quarters when his death occurred.
I have a feeling that the Thai paper ran the photo in a tabloid spirit–the spectacle amasses interest, and more people will purchase the paper. From what I’ve read about Thai Rath, the paper that published the photos, it pretty much functions as a tabloid, thriving off of “news” at the expense of celebrities and the deceased.
Asian newspapers have an unfortunate propensity to lean towards a tabloid style in their reporting. Last year, during the Edison Chen scandal, Chen’s image, along with scandal photos, were pasted on the front covers of several Hong Kong and China papers for nearly a month. As if there is no other front-page-worthy news in their nations/world.
What ultimately needs to change is the mindset and attitude of the editors who decide whether to run such photographs. I personally think that it was a very poor, shortsighted decision on the part of the newspaper editors to exploit Carradine’s situation in order to turn a profit. Photos of his death would not contribute much factually to an equally informative text article about the circumstances of Carradine’s death.
Newspapers have a responsibility to wisely decide what they will publish and what they will omit. It’s not an issue of censorship, but the process of editorial decision-making that determines whether or not readers will benefit from news content.
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On a lighter note, I discovered this video of Charlie Schmidt, creator of Keyboard Cat, with David Carradine:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSOnZLvZBlA&feature=player_embedded]
But this really just gives me an excuse to post this. Play him off, Keyboard Cat!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J—aiyznGQ]
Jessica–
I think most of us would agree with you that publishing photos of “Napalm Girl” was justified whereas publishing postmortem photos of David Carradine was not, but we’d be hard pressed to explain exactly why. I think you’ve hit it right on the head with your explanation.
Oh keyboard cat. He is so ambivalent to tragedy.