Chapter 7: Ethics of Photojournalism

Photo By: Kristen Foster 

It may come as a surprise to some to realize that photojournalism can be a very controversial profession. When a photojournalist sets their mind to capturing a certain moment, they will usually do just about anything to not let that moment slip away. That is when the lines between what is ethically right and wrong begin to blur.

 A perfect example of controversy in photojournalism is brought to light in the History Channel’s article These Are the 10 Most Controversial Moments in the History of Photography. The controversy was started by a photographer named “Mathew Brady—whose 1864 portrait of Abraham Lincoln is visible on the $5 bill—organized an exhibition in his New York studio called‘The Dead of Antietam’”. Photographer Alexander Gardner, who worked for Brady, was sent to photograph the bodies of dead soldiers to be shown to the entire country.

Photo By: Alexander Gardner

  

There were many conflicting viewpoints when it came to the perception of Brady’s photographs. For instance, some were not bothered by the work, while others were completely shocked. In the History channel article previously stated the sentence “If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it” was used to describe Brady’s work. This quotation really brings to light the ethical issues of Brady’s photographs. The same article mentions a quotation from The New York Times that reads as follows “Mr. Brady has done something tobring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war”. This specific quotation touches upon Brady’s main focus behind these gruesome photographs, and that is to expose the harsh reality that is war (death, blood, corpses, etc.).

Some ethic principles that I mentioned in my map include empathy and respect. These two principles were missing from Brady’s work. For instance, it does not seem that he really considered the families of the dead soldiers he had Gardner photograph. It was both insensitive and disrespectful for these pictures of these soldiers to be published, when considering their own families that will be exposed to these photographs. Overall, ethics need to be determined by the photojournalist at that specific moment, but I really do not believe that Brady’s work was ethically right in this situation.

Photo By: Alexander Gardner