History of Photojournalism: Chapter 7- Ethics

A specific photo that resulted in heated reactions was one from Kevin Carter. The photograph was of a vulture and a young girl from Sudan. Carter had made a trip to Sudan in March of 1993. Carter stumbled upon a young girl that was taking a rest during her struggle of a walk to a United Nations feeding center where a vulture had landed near the young girl as well. Carter was cautious not to make too much noise because he did not want to disturb the bird. Carter waited a little while in hopes that the vulture would reposition itself close enough to the girl so that he could capture an image. Once the bird moved within the range of the image frame, Carter captured his photograph and then chased the bird away. At that point Carter was probably not yet aware that he had shot one of the most controversial photographs in the history of photojournalism.

The story of the young girl was that her parents were busy collecting food from the food center and had left their children alone only for a brief moment. That brief moment was enough time for Carter to capture an image that would never be forgotten. Soon after the photo was sold to the New York Times where is was published for the first time on March 26, 1993. People were in an uproar. Hundreds of people contacted the newspaper out of concern for the child. People were concerned for the child's well being and if that young girl had survived or not. The other big question was why did Carter photograph her but not help her. This is a common conflict among photojournalists. They are stuck between acting as a dispassionate observer or a good samaritan. People described Carter as being a predator and just another vulture on the scene. In Carter's defense, he was working in a time where photojournalists were instructed not to touch famines people in hopes to prevent the spread of disease.

After the backlash, Carter has mentioned regret of not doing anything but he does not know what he could have done to help the child. Soon the judgment became to much as described by the author of the article "The vulture and the little girl." In 1994, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for the disturbing photograph of a Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture. That same year, Kevin Carter committed suicide. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33. He left a suicide note that read,“I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist… I am depressed… without phone… money for rent … money for child support… money for debts… money!!!… I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain… of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners… I have gone to join Ken [recently deceased colleague Ken Oosterbroek] if I am that lucky” Ethical dilemmas are hard on both sides of the party. They send the people viewing the media into an uproar but who is on the receiving end of that? In this case, the receiving end never expected the amount of backlash his photograph resulted in.

Ethics can be described as moral values. Moral values that I base my daily life off of are honesty, integrity, kindness, trustworthy and helpfulness. I believe that the photo Carter captured was raw honesty. Is is the reality of the young Sudanese girl. In my opinion it would have been unethical for him to alter this image and sugar coat it in any way. Carter shows integrity by adhering to moral and ethical principles of visual journalists. The NPPA put in place a code of ethics for photojournalists and I believe this photo follows them. This photo I also believes makes him a trustworthy photojournalist. This photo encompasses a lot of emotion and I can image the internal struggle he must have gone through when deciding whether or not to sell the photo to a major publication. Obviously in choosing to do so, he never expected to amount of back lash he received. I suppose the action of photographing this struggling child does not fall under the tarp of kindness and helpfulness because he did nothing to help the child. In reality, what could he have done to help the child? No amount of food that he could have given her would have cured her malnourishment or the famine of Sudan. Photojournalists of that time were also instructed not to touch any of their subjects to prevent to spread of disease. I do not believe that he took this photo to be cruel or mean. I just think that the photo covers a sensitive topic and some viewers are not as open minded as others.