More Than Observers
Saturday, September 2 2006
Published on AllBusiness.com
Compassion and a sense of social justice motivate many photojournalist, who risk their lives to raise public awareness and move the world to action on behalf of the victims of war and natural disaster.
For all their good intentions, though, photojournalists are often held in suspicion. Hollywood movies frequently portray them as selfish, shallow, voyeuristic and driven by personal gain. (It doesn't help that the paparazzi form Hollywood's notion of photojournalists).
In the heat of real battle, meanwhile, photojournalists are subject to partisan manipulation and charges of bias. Occasionally, such charges are founded. Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj's clumsily manipulated image of the aftermath of one Israeli bombing raid over Beirut played into the hands of partisan critics of the war coverage, and undermined the credibility of all photographers.
Lost in the media noise, though, were the small acts of kindness on the part of several photographers in two bombed-out Lebanese towns on July 31 and August 1. Based in Tyre, the photographers were covering Israeli attacks on nearby towns when they arrived in Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun and found civilians?including elderly and disabled people?unable to cross the rubble to safety.
"We simply carried them on our backs," says photographer Timothy Fadek. Others who helped included Magnum photographers Chris Anderson, Thomas Dworzak and Paolo Pellegrin; Yahoo! News multimedia journalist Kevin Sites, Lebanese photographer Wael Ladki, Lefteris Pitarakis of the Associated Press, photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer, and journalists from Turkey, according to Fadek.
It is an unwritten rule of journalism not to intervene in the events that you are covering. But many journalists bend that rule when basic human decency calls for it. Numerous journalists aided Hurricane Katrina victims last year with transportation and supplies, for instance.
"In south Lebanon there is an absolute nonexistence of rescuers. It's a matter of just being a human being," Fadek says. "You're there to help. It's a no-brainer."
Photographers can achieve more as eyewitnesses than as good Samaritans to help bring an end to violence in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. But the compassion captured in these images remind us of what so many photojournalists risk every day, and why.
For all their good intentions, though, photojournalists are often held in suspicion. Hollywood movies frequently portray them as selfish, shallow, voyeuristic and driven by personal gain. (It doesn't help that the paparazzi form Hollywood's notion of photojournalists).
In the heat of real battle, meanwhile, photojournalists are subject to partisan manipulation and charges of bias. Occasionally, such charges are founded. Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj's clumsily manipulated image of the aftermath of one Israeli bombing raid over Beirut played into the hands of partisan critics of the war coverage, and undermined the credibility of all photographers.
Lost in the media noise, though, were the small acts of kindness on the part of several photographers in two bombed-out Lebanese towns on July 31 and August 1. Based in Tyre, the photographers were covering Israeli attacks on nearby towns when they arrived in Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun and found civilians?including elderly and disabled people?unable to cross the rubble to safety.
"We simply carried them on our backs," says photographer Timothy Fadek. Others who helped included Magnum photographers Chris Anderson, Thomas Dworzak and Paolo Pellegrin; Yahoo! News multimedia journalist Kevin Sites, Lebanese photographer Wael Ladki, Lefteris Pitarakis of the Associated Press, photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer, and journalists from Turkey, according to Fadek.
It is an unwritten rule of journalism not to intervene in the events that you are covering. But many journalists bend that rule when basic human decency calls for it. Numerous journalists aided Hurricane Katrina victims last year with transportation and supplies, for instance.
"In south Lebanon there is an absolute nonexistence of rescuers. It's a matter of just being a human being," Fadek says. "You're there to help. It's a no-brainer."
Photographers can achieve more as eyewitnesses than as good Samaritans to help bring an end to violence in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. But the compassion captured in these images remind us of what so many photojournalists risk every day, and why.