Opinion - News Analysis

When does news become “pornography”

A constant dilemma newspapers face was succinctly summed up by Sir Harold Evans, famous as Editor of The Times, London, and author of standard books on journalism theory and practice, in his K.C. Mammen Mappillai memorial lecture in New Delhi on November 15, 2007: “If you publish the hideous videos of beheadings jehadis circulate or display the image of a hooded hostage, are you doing exactly as the killers wish — creating terror by becoming a tool of terror? Or are you exposing the jaws of the beast? Are you exercising freedom or are you indulging in the pornography of violence? When and how should you show restraint in the exercise of freedom if restraint helps the security forces detect and protect? Should you go further and cooperate?”

In my column on October 30, 2006, I had raised a similar question on the use of photos — where to draw the line between news value and adverse reader reaction? There too I had quoted Harold Evans as saying: “Is the event it portrays of such social and historical significance that the shock (resulting from the publication of a picture) is justified?” I had also explained the criteria adopted to take a decision on such occasions.

But the question keeps recurring. Prof. R. Vaidyanathan (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore) lodged this protest: “I was dismayed on seeing the photo of Prabakaran, chief of LTTE, paying homage to Tamilselvan (The Hindu, November 5, 2007). LTTE is a banned organisation in India and its chief is a wanted man in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. I feel respectable papers like The Hindu should set standards by not publicising his photo. You may recall that neither the BBC nor any British papers used to show the voice or photo of (Gerry) Adams of the IRA as long as it was a banned terrorist organisation in U.K.”

That set me wondering, because I was not aware of any such self-restraint by U.K. newspapers. I posed the question to Hasan Suroor in London and he confirmed that the mainstream (London) newspapers did not practise any such ban and in fact were critical of the action. There could have been some Unionist papers which resorted to such a practice.

As for BBC, the ban was not voluntary but imposed by the Government on broadcast media, but not on newspapers. In October 1988, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd announced that organisations in Northern Ireland believed to support terrorism would be banned from broadcasting directly. The ban covered 11 Loyalist and Republican organisations but Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, was the main target. It meant that instead of having Gerry Adams, viewers and listeners would hear an actor’s voice reading a transcript of the Sinn Fein leader’s words. The restrictions were lifted in 1994 following the IRA’s announcement of a cease-fire.

Objection to gruesome pictures comes from a reader in Edayaramula, Kerala. He says The Hindu’s “dignified coverage” is “compromised by the habitual practice of showing graphic photographs of dead bodies on the front page.” It “smack(s) of sensationalism which The Hindu has so far admirably refrained from.” T.S., as the reader prefers to be identified, adds: “…the feeling is as if a kind and trusted friend with an eye patch, instead of showing her sunny and respectable face, has lately taking to greeting us displaying her gaping, bloody and infected eye-socket.”

I commiserated with the reader. Personally, I dislike such pictures on Page 1. And as News Editor I did not have to take them, for that was the paper’s policy then. But perceptions and practices change. Professionally I now agree that considerations of news value override personal aversions and lead to the use of such graphics. A newspaper after all is only a reflection of the real world where violence is an every day, every hour occurrence. The Hindu does not “indulge in the pornography of violence” as a general rule. It so happened that when T.S. wrote, three such pictures appeared on Page 1 in one week and the objections had some validity. I hope this also answers reader S. Swaminathan (Chennai) who wants norms to be established for choice of pictures, and particularly for the front page.

On the use of the Prabakaran picture on Page 1 the Editor-in-Chief says: “The dharma of newspapers is to report the news as factually as possible. We don’t adopt arbitrary and subjective standards to ‘censor’ what should be published and what should not. Publishing the picture of Prabakaran, whose policies and actions we have editorially opposed and condemned more than any other Indian publication, was the correct decision, applying the approach and yardstick mentioned above.”

There are two main yardsticks in selecting a picture for publication—news value and picture quality. By both standards the use of Prabakaran’s picture was justified. His public appearance is a rare event and it followed a significant news development, the killing of LTTE leader Tamilselvan by Sri Lankan forces.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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