A ética e as imagens

Na página de Internet do The New York Times encontra-se uma discussão das questões de ética associadas com a divulgação nos meios de comunicação da imagem do corpo do menino sírio numa praia turca. Nos EUA, dos grandes jornais, apenas o The Los Angeles Times e o The Washington Post decidiram publicar as imagens dos close-ups do corpo.

Concordo com a justificação de Kim Murphy e do The Los Angeles Times:

Kim Murphy, the assistant managing editor of The Los Angeles Times for foreign and national news, said there had been a consensus among the paper’s senior editors to show the boy as he was discovered, face down on the beach.

“The image is not offensive, it is not gory, it is not tasteless — it is merely heartbreaking, and stark testimony of an unfolding human tragedy that is playing out in Syria, Turkey and Europe, often unwitnessed,” she said. “We have written stories about hundreds of migrants dead in capsized boats, sweltering trucks, lonely rail lines, but it took a tiny boy on a beach to really bring it home to those readers who may not yet have grasped the magnitude of the migrant crisis.”