Sunday, August 07, 2005

Disaster Photos -- Newsworthy Or Irresponsible?

(From The USA Today -- By Mark Memmott)

Photos taken by survivors of THE LONDON BOMBINGS and Tuesday's PLANE CRASH IN TORONTO are prompting concerns by safety investigators and journalism scholars.

At issue -- Whether as CAMERA PHONES and DIGITAL CAMERAS multiply, so do the odds that victims will put themselves and others at risk by pausing to snap pictures.

Questions are also being raised about whether the media may be encouraging risky behavior by broadcasting the images.

On the other side of the debate, such photos may aid investigators.

Within a few hours of THE LONDON ATTACKS July 7th, photos taken by survivors with camera phones were ricocheting around the world on the Internet and on television.

Four photos taken Tuesday by AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 358 passenger EDDIE HO were broadcast later on several outlets, including ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA, CNN and NBC's TODAY. One was snapped inside the jet moments after it skidded to a halt in TORONTO. It shows passengers heading to an exit. The others were taken outside the jet and show passengers fleeing the crippled fuselage.

All 309 people aboard survived.

Ho, 19, A SOUTH AFRICIAN attending college in CANADA, said Thursday in a telephone interview with THE USA TODAY that his digital camera was in his pocket during the flight. He is an "airline enthusiast" who often takes pictures while flying. Ho sold the photos to two syndicates, which are now reselling them to the media.

Ho said he doesn't think he delayed his exit or anyone else's. "I was running and taking pictures," he said. "I just kept pressing the button." He said he would not have tried to retrieve his camera if it had been in a bag.

Still, a top accident investigation official in the USA strongly advises passengers not to do such things.

MARK ROSENKER, Acting Director of THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD (NTSB), said, "Your business is to get off the airplane. Your business is to help anybody who needs help." Taking photos is "irresponsible," he said.

HELEN MUIR, Aerospace Psychology Professor at CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY in GREAT BRITAIN, said in most crashes "you only have two minutes from the first spark to conditions not being survivable in the cabin." Pausing even for a second "is just what we don't want people to do." But, Muir said, the pictures could be "very valuable to accident investigators." They contain clues to the jet's condition after the crash.

More such photos are inevitable. There are digital cameras in about half of U.S. households and camera phones in about 40%, the market research firm IDC estimates. About 92 million camera phones have been sold in the USA, IDC says.

KELLY McBRIDE, who lectures about media ethics at THE POYNTER INSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS, said the media have a responsibility "to refuse to publish photos taken (by amateurs) when someone was obviously risking his life or the lives of others."

McBride said journalists must "talk to the person about the circumstances under which he took the photos and share that information with the public."

BEN SHERWOOD, Executive Producer at GOOD MORNING AMERICA, said there was no reason to think Ho had caused any problems at the scene. "From what we could tell" from the photos, Sherwood said, "one was taken in the jet during what appeared to be an orderly evacuation. The others were taken from outside, looking back."

Sherwood said GOOD MORNING AMERICA "welcomes contributions from people who find themselves in the middle of news stories but would never encourage anyone to take an unnecessary risk."

JONATHAN KLEIN, President of CNN/US, said his network "urges folks, on the air, not to take foolish risks." He doubts many survivors are thinking about the media when they pull out their cameras.

"They're taking pictures in order to satisfy that primordial urge to record one's history," Klein said.

MARK GLASER, a columnist at THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM's ONLINE JOURNALISM REVIEW, said, "Over time, people will recognize when it's the right time to use your camera in an emergency."

Unfortunately, he said, "it may take someone dying" because they stopped to take a picture before that "cultural norm" is reached.

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