Don't shoot the messenger (From Times Series)

Don't shoot the messenger

6:26pm Wednesday 14th January 2009

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A grown man lays collapsed amid the dirt and debris of a city being showered in bombs. His eyes, widened and frozen with fear, could belong to a man taking his last breath. Equally, they could belong to a man already dead. Another casualty of the Gaza conflict.

One arm is stretched out, an accusatory finger sticks out. Is he pointing to the photographer we can’t see, but know, is there? Angry a lens is in his face as he lays in that most desperate and vulnerable state? Whatever the reason, in no uncertain terms, it screamed 'help me'.

This image was used on the Guardian’s feature supplement, G2, last week. When I saw it, my first thought was: "Wow. What a shot." To me, it spoke volumes; about the horror of war, how cheap the lives of civilians are to Governments and about how severe life in the Gaza strip actually is. I was so haunted, and impressed, I showed it to a friend of mine. She was disgusted.

But not with the warfare, she was disgusted with photographers, reporters and historians who view images like this, as I argued, as essential in reaching that elusive journalistic ideal of telling the unvarnished truth of What Is Really Going On.

Why didn’t the photographer help him, she wanted to know, or was he just thinking about how much money, or glory, he could get for the snap?

But as harsh as it may sound, the reality is he, and his countrymen, are beyond help. Behind him other Palestinians can be seen stepping over piles of bloodied bodies as they run for cover. Because more bombs will surely fall. And as these bodies are cleared, more corpses will take their place.

I side neither with Palestine nor Israel (I’m just anti-war). I respect privacy, but I also respect the public’s right to know and a journalist’s right to tell the story. I don’t have the answers to the paradox that is ethical journalism. But what I truly believe is that the majority of journalists, foreign correspondents and photographers (excluding the paparazzi) aren't glory seekers but really care about the work they do.

Maybe we do sound self-important when waxing lyrical about being the eyes and ears of the public. Or seem pretentious when we pore over pages and over-analyse whether a two-deck headline looks better than a three-deck.

We take it personally when the print quality isn’t up to scratch. We, too, have Giles Coren-style artistic flip-outs (in our heads, to be polite) when our stories are tampered with. In the pub, we talk about work, work and work. And a bit more about work.

But what looks like self-obsession is actually dedication. Journalists work long hours for little pay. And we are driven, not by the few-and-far-between perks, but by a desire to record the history of the world as fairly, and as accurately as we can.

Words are powerful and coupled with images can make real the story of a man you never had the chance to meet. When someone says Vietnam War, I see that young girl running through streets her body burning with napalm. I will never forget those fatal moments when a second plane flew into the World Trade Centre. When I think of the Holocaust, I see skeletal figures left without families or their dignity.

Capturing those images has meant I can’t remove myself from the gruesome truth, because it becomes all too real.

So, please don’t shoot the messenger. But if you do, feel free to take a picture — in the name of public interest, of course.

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