You are a parent and you left your children at home to briefly visit a friend. While away, you pick up a copy of the Florida Times Union and start reading the lead story: a house burned down and there was one fatality. Accompanying the text is a black-and-white photograph revealing the stark silhouette left by the victim's body. As you read on, you are suddenly stricken with terror as the details unfold; the house was in your town, on your street, at your address. In a panic, you glance back to the picture and read the caption with an unbeating heart. The lifeless words impart that the body outlined in ash on the ground was that of your teenage daughter. The victim was your child.

Such was the case of the Fletchers in Florida in 1974. The amount of anguish they experienced must have been unimaginable; it did not stop at the grief of losing a daughter, but went on to deny them the luxury of learning of the tragedy before others bearing no connection to the family at all. The publication of the photograph was unnecessary and disrespectful, violating the rights of the family and causing them pain at no one's benefit. The story of the Fletchers became a precedent of similar incidents in which a picture or description horrified audiences and triggered outrage and controversy within the realm of journalism. More recently was the photograph showing flag-draped coffins of fallen American soldiers first printed on the front page of the Seattle Times in 2004, and pictures of mutilated bodies hanging from a Fallujah bridge later that year. These examples stand as strong reasons why graphic images or details of sensitive events ought not be publicized by the mass media to the general public.

Legality is one of the main bases of this argument. For one, the First Amendment provides that the media is entitled to protections under freedom of expression although protection is not absolute. This includes protection of one's right to privacy. The publication of private information tort is an area of privacy law that can be called on when emotional distress or harm is brought onto victims and their families. Under this tort, material may be published so long as it is legally obtained, not "offensive to a reasonable person," and "of legitimate public concern" (Pember and Calvert 281).

Victims and their families have not only legal rights to privacy, but also human rights to peace in the wake of a sensitive incident that can be violated by the publication of pictures or data in which they are unwillingly depicted. A survey conducted by the Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project, which involved more than 2,400 readers and 400 journalists who viewed explicit photographs and then decided if they should be published, found that 30 percent of readers and 21 percent of journalists felt a photograph of a fatally wounded soldier being attended to by medics in Iraq should not be published out of respect for the family. Kathryn Martin, a reader from North Chili, New York, elaborated, "I feel really strongly about this picture as I have a military son. I DO NOT want to see his dead body in the newspaper and have it run for years and years to catch me unawares anytime there is a 'retrospective' about the war. (qtd. in Pitts)" Such reactions demonstrate the clout a journalist's choices can have.

The judgment of the media is really the only thing determining what is suitable and what is too explicit to be publicized. Journalists often choose to include content they believe is strong expressly for its ability to shock and disturb. They want to illustrate the magnitude of an event's features to the public, and convey an idea driving a situation. John Harte, a photographer for The Bakersfield Californian, explained that publication of his picture showing a family crying over the body of a drowned boy was justified in that "our area is plagued by an unusually high number of drownings annually... We hoped that by running this one our readers would have gotten the message that we felt it was important they witness the horror that can result when water safety is taken lightly" (Mencher 546). Harte designed for the printing to have an adverse affect on the public so as to stir them to positive action. And indeed, they were so stirred by the forcibleness of the photograph that several readers responded in protest to its publication. Attempting to influence an audience's opinions about a sensitive event in such a way is likely to result in grief and disturbance for those on both sides of the press. After all, the definition of "sensitive," according to Webster's College Dictionary, is "highly secret or delicate; requiring prudence" (Webster 1221). The purpose impelling reporters to publish graphic pictures or facts often distorts their perception and impairs their ability to take into consideration the rights of those involved in an event as well as those of the public.

The publication of graphic information by the mass media is largely a matter of courtesy to the public. Often such depictions offend and disturb at least a portion of large, broad audiences. Displaying overly graphic images in the news is not much different from doing so in movies, except that there are no MPAA ratings or warnings to allow for preclusion of exposure to the potentially distasteful or traumatizing material. People have the choice to view this more mature matter when advisory messages are included. Unfortunately, the public renounces discretion to the press when it comes to their news. There is little that can be done by the time that, say, a young child flicks on the TV and sees from footage taken at the scene of a car accident the bloodied body of a victim hanging out of the vehicle. Dennis Hetzel, editor and publisher of the York Daily Record, said that after printing a photo of a mother being comforted in the wake of a middle school shooting, "for every angry reader, there was another critic who acted more disappointed than angry. The tone was along these lines: ‘I didn't expect that from the Daily Record'(qtd. in Steele)."

Printing graphic photos and information often does little to benefit society, ironically. Material should be of considerable import to the public, enough so that people may take such information and use it to enhance their lives or at least form better opinions or decisions. The courts define legitimate public concern as "what people find interesting, not what people should be interested in reading about" (Pember 288). The cultures and customs of the affected communities should be taken into account as well. The press is not required to justify publication of private information in court, but judges and juries oftentimes analyze the purpose of publication. They consider whether images or details were publicized to inform the public of a concept or problem, or if they were included merely for purposes of titillation or shallow entertainment.

Journalists indeed have the societal responsibility to seek imperative information and report it as accurately and fairly as possible. The public depends on the press to inform them of facts and data that may prove relevant and useful to their lives. But the key here is the obligation journalists have as human beings to act with compassion towards others when they are most vulnerable. It is difficult to strike a balance between ethics and duty, for not only is it the role of the media to inform the public of pertinent facts, but oftentimes graphic material is profitable in its appeal to the public's hunger for grit and grime. And in most cases concerning invasion of privacy, the courts will rule that public interest outweighs offensiveness, giving the press the advantage of the law.

Nonetheless, journalists must place themselves above mundane motives and focus on the rights and sentiments of those involved in a story. All ethical considerations prevail over any benefits that may arise from the publication of graphic material; in no case is it worth selling a few copies of a newspaper if it means deeply hurting another human being. Allen Wheelis, a psychoanalyst regarded by the American Association of Psychiatrists, said about ethics, "Life is the referent of value. What enlarges and enriches life is good; what diminishes and endangers life is evil" (qtd. in Mencher 552). By this standard, publicizing graphic information often proves to be ethically unsound in that it causes more harm than good, despite its intent to serve the public interest.

I am always one of the first to advocate exposure of fact, no matter how disturbing or undesirable. As a journalism major and aspiring reporter I hold the truth to be the greatest objective of the profession, and personally I would rather know the truth than be blissfully ignorant. However, publishing explicit photos and information is unnecessary in that it often offers little of public concern, if anything positive at all, and engenders further pain or embarrassment in victims and their loved ones. As Lori Robertson of the American Journalism Review stated, "If anything's a given in photojournalism, it's that there are restrictions and limitations--both in what journalists can capture with a camera and what editors will show to the public" (Robertson). So, despite any legality and good intentions behind it, publication of graphic images or details of sensitive events by the mass media to the general public ought not occur.

"Media Panel Debates Use of Violent Images." Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma 15 Apr. 2004. 5 Feb. 2006.

Mencher, Melvin. News Reporting and Writing. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Pember, Don R., and Clay Calvert. Mass Media Law. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005

Pitts, Ryan. "Readers, journalists struggle with same issues in publishing graphic photos." Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project. 2003. 7 Feb. 2006.

Robertson, Lori. "Images of War." American Journalism Review. Oct./Nov. 2004. 10 Feb. 2006. < http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3759>

"Sensitive." Webster's Random House College Dictionary. 1991.

Steele, Bob. "Reporting a school shooting." Poynter Online. 9 May 2003. 10 Feb 2006.