January 14, 2009
On editorial responsibility
Alessandra Sanguinetti
Soldiers rested on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza during the three-hour cease-fire on Wednesday.
© Moises Saman for The New York Times
I have been following the coverage of the Gaza invasion, and this photograph, printed on The New York Times front page on January 8th caught my attention for its bucolic feeling.
On that same day, January 7th, while these soldiers rested, 30 corpses were found under the rubble of a bombed building in Gaza, among them four starving children next to their dead mothers. See this article.
Israel has banned all foreign press from entering Gaza, but surely there must be images that are more relevant to the situation, as can be seen inside the paper.
Maybe I'm being picky, but knowing the power an image on the front page can have on the perception of events, I'd like to open a discussion on editorial responsibility: Why would a newspaper choose to represent a conflict of these proportions with this romantic image?
Published on the Magnum Blog on January 14, 2009
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