Over the past 150 years public acceptance and tolerance for the display of graphic and violent images in the coverage of news events has changed a great deal. Over time, pictures displaying pain, suffering, death, blood, and gore have become less frequently used in print and broadcast possibly because editors fear they may be alienating and offending some subscribers. Editors, in other words, have become extremely sensitive to the impact images may have on the community and often deliberate the consequences at great length before publishing. Ironically, this same attitude has never taken hold in the entertainment industry where pictures of bloodied bodies are the norm.
Some researchers point to how most of the images used to illustrate the World Trade Center attacks reflect the restraint and self-censorship applied to the harsh realities of the event. In fact, almost all of the coverage from 9-11 showed very few images of dead bodies strewn throughout the ruins. There were a few photos circulated of people leaping to their deaths, but never was the public allowed to see the impact that followed.
The cultural pathology of newspaper picture editing indicates how much society has changed in terms of our tolerance for pictures of violence. The choices that are made in order to convey the realities of an event made not be a matter of right or wrong moral ethics and more a matter of sensibility and public taste.
Recently, a photo of an injured racehorse caused a stir from readers of the San Antonio Express-News. The picture shows the crippled horse, Miss Pretty Promises stumbling on the track after breaking her front legs. The horse was euthanized on the spot.
Today, when an editor makes a decision to use an image that may offend some viewers or readers there is no shortage of debate in the newsroom as to what the consequences may be.
Bob Richter, the paper's public editor, wrote about the reaction some reader had to the image of the injured horse.
"Among the terms used to describe the photo were "shocking," "horrendous," "pathetic" and "in poor taste.'"
Although the paper received dozen of emails and phone calls about the image, only one reader took issue with the actual written story. This clearly sends a message that images communicate far more immediately and directly than words.
Perhaps it is best to understand images of pain and suffering as symbols of things we fear most.
What the image may more clearly represent is, as writer John Tedesco observes, the "ugly side to a moribund industry
struggling to fill empty seats."
According to Tedesco:
Miss Pretty Promises is one of hundreds of racehorses in Texas that lose a life-or-death gamble the public seldom sees.
At the state's five licensed tracks, Marsh and other veterinarians with the Texas Racing Commission have euthanized or documented the deaths of 300 horses in the past five years, usually after the animals broke ankles, legs or even spinal cords during races, according to the agency's database of horse injuries obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.
Vets who scratched injured horses from races and euthanized the grievously injured compiled the database, which never has been analyzed by outsiders.
While thousands of horses compete safely in Texas, the records reveal an ugly side to a moribund industry struggling to fill empty seats.
What this image and others signify is what journalism should be all about -- truthtelling. Despite the obvious discomfort that comes from showing graphic images in the daily newspaper, it is the responsibility of the press to reveal injustices in the world.