SWAZI PAPER SHOWS BOMB VICTIMS

Swaziland’s Times Sunday made a bad error of judgement yesterday when it published photographs of the dismembered remains of two men who were reportedly blown up when a bomb they were intending to plant blew up and killed them.

The Times Sunday attempted to justify its actions by saying that it was necessary to publish the pictures because it proved that the bombing actually happened.

It reported yesterday (5 October 2008) on the reasons for publication, ‘The primary reason being the public interest: the pictures are but proof that two people were indeed blown to death by the bomb that prematurely exploded before it could be planted under the Lozitha overhead bridge.’

It went on to say that it thought the pictures would also spark a debate on ‘is this the terror we want as a country’.

Just how it would do this is unclear.

The pictures were ghastly and had no place in a newspaper. They added nothing to readers’ understanding of why the bomb exploded and what it was the planters of the bomb were trying to protest about.

I am puzzled why the Times Sunday thought it was necessary to prove that the explosion actually took place. Is it saying that there is a publicly-voiced concern that the deaths never actually happened? Does it mean to say that people believe it is all one big propaganda stunt on the part of the Swaziland defence forces to make people think that there is a terrorist threat in Swaziland when there is not?

The newspaper insults the intelligence of its readers if it genuinely believes that it has to publish pictures of bodies that have been blown to pieces in order to convince them of a fact. Who does the Times Sunday think was buried at the weekend if not the two dead men?

Incidentally, the Times Sunday doesn’t make clear where it got the photographs from. Was a newspaper photographer conveniently to hand when the bomb went off? If one had a suspicious mind one might think that the pictures were taken by security force personnel and later handed to the paper.

The photographs caused anger among readers if comments left on the newspaper’s website are anything to go by. Some made references to the editor’s lack of skill and lamented that former editor Bheki Makhubu was no longer at the paper.

See also

HORROR PICTURES IN ‘SWAZI NEWS’

HORROR PIX, SWAZI READER’S VIEW

I wrote last week about the gory photographs of dead bodies that were published in the Swazi News.

I received a lot of comments about the use of graphic images of death by newspapers and no one who contacted me supported their use. I even wondered out loud whether the newspapers realised that they were putting off readers (and potential readers) by publishing such pictures.

A reader’s letter in the Swazi Observer today (1 July 2008) returns us to the theme. The letter writer, Lucky Masoma Mndzebele recounts some other examples of bad taste in newspapers.

I think Mndzebele makes some valid points in the letter. But I disagree with the ‘solution’ advocated. Putting ‘irresponsible’ journalists in jail is no solution. But I do advocate an open and lively debate between newspaper readers and journalists to determine whether the publishing of gory pictures really is what members of the public want.

Here is the letter in full.


Away with those gory images

PLEASE allow me space in your paper to warn journalists and pub­lishers against the use of gory pictures.

It is annoying to see images of dead people splashed on the front pages of national news­papers. It is disturbing enough to learn about accidents but to see the disfigured bodies of relatives and loved ones in newspapers is unwarranted. We must just agree that it is eth­ically wrong to publish those images even though journalists may argue that they are in the business of selling newspapers.

All media practitioners are guilty of this. I have also seen disturbing images in one of the television stations in the country.

Does it really make sense to make money by annoying readers? Definitely not.

I know of many successful newspapers who do not delve on publishing gory images.

Mating

I remember sometime in the past I saw an image of two different species of animals mating. I wondered what the publishers thought they were teaching the nation. I could not see the value in that picture. Why was it published in the first place?

It is only in Swaziland where you can be shown the picture of a baby that died in an accident. I remember one time a television station interviewed an elderly rape survivor of Nhlambeni. They did not bother to cover her face.

They asked her all sorts of embarrassing questions and she gave graphic detail of her ordeal. I asked myself the question as to whose benefit was the coverage. What were we being educated about? Even though the intended purpose was to warn people against rape, it lost all meaning in the manner it was presented.

Uncriticised

In fact, it puts off viewers but because there is no monitoring body in the country the sta­tion went uncriticised.

I still wonder how the offspring of the old woman felt or still feel today. Imagine you are far away and watching your mother or grand­mother telling the entire nation how she was raped by a herdboy.

For how long are we to be subjected to this kind of ill-treatment by members of the fourth estate? Probably journalists are not to blame, they are assigned by the owners of the busi­nesses to break all ethics in the quest for money.

I wonder what happened to the Media Complaints Commission. Journalists were all over the show telling us about self-regulatory mechanisms but today they are quiet about it and continue to feed us with all sorts of poi­son.

Were you to consider suggesting to the state to intervene it would be viewed as gagging the media. But we require minimum standards to be observed by all media houses. We want some form of responsibility.

Whatever happened to the organisation of journalists is still unclear. I remember that they were active only in as far as media awards or parties were concerned. When it came to such serious matters as respecting the rights of the public they relegate themselves to the background.

I remember one time during the reign of ter­ror of one Adrinkah Donkoh who wasted no time in bringing irresponsible journalists behind bars. He became so unpopular but at least he induced a sense of responsibility.

Lucky Masoma Mndzebele
Ticantfwini

See also
HORROR PICTURES IN ‘SWAZI NEWS’
ANGER OVER ‘SWAZI NEWS’ HORROR PIX

ANGER OVER ‘SWAZI NEWS’ DEATH PIX

The Swazi News’ decision to publish two pictures of dead bodies on its front page has angered readers of this blogsite.

Not one person has spoken in defence of the newspaper that showed two victims of a traffic accident. One was a close-up of a dead man at the wheel of his car. The other was a picture of a woman with her head bashed in and blood spilling onto the road.

Although shocked and angered by the images, readers have been telling me that these pictures are not the worse that the Swazi newspapers have published in recent times.

Top of your ‘hate parade’ comes from the Times of Swaziland (9 May 2008), which reported that the body of a newborn baby had been found hanging by its umbilical cord from a shrub. And there to illustrate the story was the picture.

I have to agree that this may well be the most sickening (and totally unnecessary from a news point of view) picture to be published by the Swazi newspapers ever.

Fatal car accidents are run of the mill to the newspapers. The Times (18 April 2008) had a front-page picture of an 18-year-old man crushed to death by a bus at the Manzini bus rank.

The Swazi Observer (7 April 2008) had a front-page picture of a dead man in his car following a crash involving a truck.

There is something almost pathological about these pictures. Why do people want to publish them and who wants to see them?

It is true there are a lot of sick people in the world. Would it surprise you to learn that there is an Internet website entirely devoted to pictures of car crashes?

Even when there is no picture available, the Swazi newspapers like to give graphic details of gore. The Observer (10 April 2008) reported on a grandmother who ‘was crushed to pulp’ when she alighted from a van and was immediately run over by a bus. ‘Her crushed remains had to be collected by the use of shovels and spades,’ the newspaper reported (and it reported much else besides).

I have had a number of emails complaining about the Swazi News since my original post.

‘Futi’ wrote to say that newspapers needed to remember that when an accident happened the victims were somebody’s relatives or friends, but seemingly it looks like the Swazi News only cares about its business. Journalists should remember that they do damage to our hearts by publishing such pictures, Futi says.

‘Margaret’ called the publication of the Swazi News pictures ‘trashy journalism’.

She wrote,

‘It’s ironic that the papers are so restricted and self-restricted on important national issues (such as political reporting), but when it comes to stuff like blood and gore, anything goes.

‘Another problem with the story is the prominence given to the fact that the accident happened just outside where some [government] ministers were meeting, so they might actually see something of the accident. For example the headline is Father, son die in front of Ministers and even the first sentence of the story emphasises that the accident could have been witnessed by the Ministers.

‘It's as if the main problem of the people dying is that it might disturb or taint those supposedly important people.’

‘Vusi’ put the Swazi News coverage in a wider context of Swazi journalism and broadcasting.

He wrote, ‘This reminds me the following;

‘1. A few years ago, the unfortunate death of some young boys who died a painful death when they accidentally locked themselves inside the boot of a sedan. Their naked bodies pictures made front page without any regards of the bereaved.

‘2. The explicit sex shown on Channel S without prior warning and shown when our kids are well awake!

‘3.I have listened to a number of radio adverts aired on SBIS, one just frown at the sexist and violence towards women some of these adverts contain e.g.

‘a) One which advertises some wire company in Matsapha, “utawu sitwa timomondiya tetintfombi.... (you shall be served by the gorgeous looking ladies.....”). The emphasis is on the very good looking women as part of the product being sold - that demeans our sisters as objects that will attract men to come and buy.

‘b) There is one that is done by Percy Simelane whereby the man says to the wife ngitakushaya ngikubulale - I will beat you to death) apparently over some poorly cooked meal or something of that nature. This is a pure promotion of violent domestic violence against women.

‘The like of WLSA & SWAAGA need to pay attention to such nonsense and hold the Minister of Public or is it royal broadcasting to account.’

Personally, I think the Swazi media should take account of the comments I have written about today: one thing is clear to me, readers don’t like this type of gory coverage and if editors believe their job is to give readers what they want, they are clearly failing in this regard.

See also
HORROR PICTURES IN ‘SWAZI NEWS’

HORROR PICTURES IN ‘SWAZI NEWS’

The Swazi News made a bad error of judgement when it published two pictures of dead bodies on its front page this week.

The pictures accompanied a report of a traffic accident in which a kombi (small bus) and a car were in collision.

The first picture showed a close up of the dead body of the driver, dead at the wheel of his car. The second picture showed a dead body of a woman on the ground with blood coming from a head wound.

The newspaper reported that the woman had been thrown through the windscreen of the kombi and ‘crashed head-on on the tarmac. She died on the spot.’

The Swazi News (21 June 2008) published more pictures of the accident inside the paper, including the same picture as appeared on the front page of the dead man on page 2 and another view of the dead woman on page 9.

(I noticed that the Weekend Observer, which also covered the traffic accident and published photographs, did not use any of dead bodies.)

There are a number of reasons why it was wrong of the Swazi News to publish the pictures.

First, I doubt if the motives of the Swazi News were pure. The pictures were clearly displayed on the front page and could be seen by passers by at the newsstands and supermarkets where the newspaper is sold. There was an obvious attempt to use these pictures to catch the eye of people who may not have intended to buy the paper. Once hooked, the passer-by purchases the paper.

That’s a pretty cynical move by the Swazi News. But what about the rest of us who are innocently out about town and are confronted by the gruesome pictures? Why should we be forced into seeing the Swazi News photographs? It is almost impossible not to see the photographs even if you don’t want to. Also, what about children who may innocently see them? What effect will it have on them?

The lurid attraction of the photos in selling more copies must have been important to the Swazi News because otherwise there was no need to publish the same picture of the man in the car on both page one (to increase sales) and on page 3 (to illustrate the story).

Another point to consider (no matter where in the newspaper the photographs were published) is the actual ‘news value’ of the photographs. What does showing two pictures of a woman with her head bashed in and blood pouring onto the tarmac add to the story? The obvious answer is that the pictures ‘show it as it is’. This accident happened in a public place and two people were violently killed and the public should be told.

Well up to a point, yes. But there are plenty of things going on in Swaziland that the public should be told about but remain hidden by the newspapers.

So, we must conclude that the pictures were considered to have some kind of ‘dramatic value’. Although they are horrific pictures, I’m not so sure that they are ‘dramatic’. Both pictures are static (the bodies are after all dead) and show nothing in action. They are ‘shocking’ certainly, but not dramatic.

There is one other factor that the Swazi News has ignored: intrusion into private grief. The people in the photographs are local. There is every possibility that the families and friends of the deceased will see the pictures splashed all over the newspaper. What do you think they would feel when they see them? What would you feel if it were your husband, father or brother in the picture?

Newspapers in Swaziland do no shy away from publishing shocking photographs. The ones in the Swazi News were the most extreme pictures to be published recently, but it is not uncommon to see pictures of people who are horribly disfigured by disease or through accident. Dead bodies have also been published before.

Media academic Johan Retief in his book Media Ethics (published by Oxford University Press) says that publishing gruesome pictures in newspapers can actually harm the readers by inflicting lasting pain and suffering on them – ‘this especially concerns pictures of tragedy, suffering, and grief – the stuff that fills every newspaper – such as accidents, rape, murder, fires, natural disasters, violence and war.’

Readers are thought to linger longer over gruesome pictures while ignoring other parts of the newspaper.

Retief says that editors often argue that by graphically publicising gruesome events such as traffic accidents, newspapers help to prevent further incidents of the same kind happening in the future (or at least help to limit them).

But he points out that for years newspapers have run pictures of traffic accidents ‘under the pretext that such photos would somehow let motorists know what awaits them should they become careless behind the wheel’.

But he concludes that even though gruesome photos of accidents are published, there is no evidence to demonstrate that publishing such photos has any effect on car accidents.

Retief wasn’t thinking about Swaziland when he made those observations, but it is clear that traffic accidents form a staple part of all newspaper coverage in the kingdom. Hardly a week goes by without a picture of a mangled vehicle (and sometimes worse) appearing on the front pages and they seem to have no impact on the standard of driving in Swaziland, which remains appallingly bad.

Retief offers a checklist for photographers and editors to consider before publishing a photograph. Here is an extract from that list.

- What is the news value of the photograph?
- What is the motivation for publishing the photo?
- Who will be offended? Does such offence outweigh the value of presenting the image?
- How would I react if I were in the photo?
- Are there any alternative ways to present the information to minimise harm while still telling the story in a clear way?
- Are you able to justify you action?

POOR PICTURE OF CHILDREN

Swazi journalists and their employers need to reassess their commitment to the ethical reporting of children. There is a clear gap between the ethical aspirations of journalists in Swaziland and the actual work they do.

This is one of the main findings of research I did into the way Swaziland’s newspapers use photographs of children.

I surveyed all Swaziland’s daily and weekend newspapers for eight weeks October to December 2006. This was a total of 56 editions of the daily newspapers The Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer; the Saturday newspapers The Weekend Observer and the Swazi News; and the Times Sunday,

I used the Swaziland National Association of Journalists (SNAJ) Code of Conduct as a guide to what should and should not be published.

The code is meant to ensure that journalists stick to the highest ethical standards, professional competence and good behaviour in carrying out their duties. Its main concern is that members of the media should conduct themselves with a high sense of responsibility without infringing the rights of individuals and society in general.

I was particularly interested in the way minors were depicted in photographs. Perhaps, the biggest area for concern with photography in all the newspapers in Swaziland is the depiction of minors, especially the issues of sexual activity and identification.

Among the examples I found was a news report that detailed a house fire in which a school pupil’s belongings were destroyed. In the course of the report a claim is made that the pupil was having an affair with one of her teachers (the pupil’s age is not given). The pupil is not named and her mother agrees to be interviewed by the paper so long as she is not identified. The report has a picture, clearly posed, of the mother with some of the remains of clothing that was burnt. Although the mother’s face has a black sticker across the eyes she is clearly identifiable by her clothes and her location. Anyone with knowledge of the location would be able to identify her and her daughter (Swazi Observer 22 November, 2006 p6).

A different newspaper states that a 14-year-old girl is selling herself for sex to get pocket money because her mother will not provide her with pants. She is not identified by name (her mother is described as a maid and the location in which she works is given). The girl is interviewed by the paper (it is not stated but it seems as if she was not interviewed with an adult present). The words used to describe the girl sexualise her. ‘Dressed in her black stockings complemented with an above the knee mini skirt, the girl stood out from the rest of her friends as someone who has been “enlightened” about life more than anything’ In the report, the girl describes how she had sex with a kombi driver and when her mother found out she severely beat her. The girl was also was also caned 15 times at her school. The report has a picture of the girl in her miniskirt talking with the newspaper’s reporter. The girl’s face is blacked out but he would be easily recognisable by anyone in her locality (Times Sunday 2 October, 2006 p5).

Another report is about a standard five primary school pupil (aged14) who is seven months pregnant but will still write her final year examinations. The girl’s mother is interviewed and gives an account of how the daughter got pregnant. The mother blames a local church, which encouraged children to attend services. It was after one of these services that she had sex with her boyfriend. The newspaper uses false names in the report to protect the family’s identity but a picture of the girl’s mother (with eyes blacked out) clearly identifies her by her clothes. There might also be a crucial mistake in the photograph’s caption, which appears to have included the mother’s real name (Times of Swaziland 24 November 2006 p5).

The photograph of two innocent children was included in a report about children aged between five years to fifteen working as prostitutes. The newspaper takes a file picture, which shows two brothers playing together. They have no connection with child prostitution and appear to have been used in the report simply because they are children. Mysteriously, the caption begins with the words ‘Naked truth’ (although both boys are fully clothed) and goes on to read ‘a boy captured carrying his younger brother while playing at Mpolonjeni area in the Lubombo region early in the year (Swazi News 4 November 2006 p12)

A total of 32 children were victims of robbery at the Christian rehabilitation centre. Two men assaulted and hacked some of the children. A newspaper report describes the children as ‘still traumatised as a result of the ordeal’. Two boys are quoted giving accounts of their experiences. Two pictures (head and shoulders) are used and both have eyes blacked out. Ages of the children are not given but an estimate would be about 12 years old (Times of Swaziland 22 November 2006 p2).

A picture of the injured back of a six-year-old boy is pictured to accompany a report that his step mother ‘brutally beat’ him. The mother is identified by name, location of residence and age but the report also states ‘The boy, whose identity shall be protected, attends a local school’. On p2 there is also a picture of the mother inside a police van seated with her daughter who has her faced blurred out. The mother is clearly identifiable and by extension so is her daughter. The reporter also attempted to interview the boy but reported ‘An attempt to speak to him proved futile as he appeared traumatised and seemed to fear his stepmother’. In contradiction of this, the reporter then quotes the boy at some length. There is reason to be sceptical about this quote since the boy uses sophisticated language that is unusual for six year olds. He is quoted as saying ‘I told her [his mother] that my friends would attest that I was in class the whole day’) (Times of Swaziland 18 October 2006 p1).

The picture of the six-year-old boy used to illustrate the report on 18 October 20067 is taken out of the file to illustrate a two-page spread on corporal punishment of children in Swaziland (Times of Swaziland 31 October 2006 p8)

All of these news items misuse children. They do not recognise that children have a special place in journalism codes of conduct because they have special needs and require special protections within society. Most adults are capable of deciding what involvement they want to have with the media and can make informed decisions as to the extent of their cooperation.

Children have neither the knowledge nor the experience to make such a decision. At the point at which journalists are gathering material for their news reports there is no equality between the journalists and the child and where there is a power imbalance there is potential for exploitation.

One possible major reason why there is a failure on the part of journalists to adhere to their own code of ethics is ideological. One cannot be surprised that journalists do not respect the rights of children when the state does not respect them either.