Media use of violent images too easy at one remove

Did we want to see Gadafy’s bloodied body on front pages? Media outlets must question their own motives

I DON’T particularly mind which candidate becomes our next president. But I really object to close-up photographic portraits of dead people being published in the newspapers. Even if the dead people were deluded homicidal tyrants. It’s wrong. That much used to be obvious.

All our roaring about the presidency – and let Seán Gallagher become First National Chancer: it is right and fitting – makes one think about the subjects that never come up for debate. The media has had a starring and self-conscious role in this presidential election, and we are always ready to discuss how influential we are. Although there is never much debate on how boring we are – all the hours of coverage of this presidential election, all the digging for scandal, and still the public is catatonic with the tedium of it all. Or maybe it’s just me.

On the other hand, the subject of what sort of images and what sort of language the media generates daily is never widely discussed. For example, when did it become acceptable for journalists on RTÉ to refer to a thousand euro or dollars or pounds as “a grand”? If we could pinpoint the moment that “a thousand” routinely became “a grand”, with all the raciness and casual complacency that change implies, we would have that rare thing, a truly significant cultural moment. But no one, as far as I know, maintains a watching brief on these things in any official capacity, although they matter a good deal.

As the scandal of the firetraps at Priory Hall has shown us yet again, supervision and regulation are not among our national talents. This is just as true of public service broadcasting as it is of the building industry. There are trailers going out during the breaks on children’s programmes on RTÉ which are hair-raising in their violence. And we won’t even discuss the advertisement for a new Sims computer game, which involves humans living partially as dogs, and thus offers rich opportunities for voyeurism. Advertisements for this product go out in the early morning when few people other than children are watching television. (That advertisement was seen on a British channel.)

I used to laugh at parents who would not let their 10-year-old children watch the news on television, but now I don’t think adults should watch the news on television either. Not after the week we’ve had. The footage of Muammar Gadafy being dragged to his death appeared on our screens with no editorial warning that I heard. In Ireland, at least, it has been largely left to female columnists to object to the display of this man’s physical vulnerability and suffering: and that’s not a good sign. It has not been a hot topic on the airwaves.

There is a simple principle here of not broadcasting the humiliation of a prisoner. It extends to the images of Saddam Hussein having oral swabs taken after his capture. These things are done, but there is no reason that they have to be witnessed by a global audience. These men did hideous things, but that’s no excuse for making their downfall a freak show.

Perhaps the silence on this subject is so deafening because the blanket display of the bloodied and broken Gadafy across the front pages of the world's newspapers – including The Irish Times– served no discernible purpose. Perhaps it is impossible to argue against the case that the dead, naked and undefended are not fair game for the camera. The fact that everyone has a camera now, on their mobile telephone, doesn't change that.

We didn't need to see the images and footage of the dead and dying Muammar Gadafy. It was an unnecessary display. We weren't there. We risked nothing by being witnesses. It's like the British soldiers being angry when the Sunnewspaper published its famous "Gotcha!" frontpage in response to the sinking of the Belgranoduring the Falklands war. British soldiers fighting in the Falklands thought it all right for them to make jokes about death and the Argies dying, because they were there on the ground being shot at themselves.

But they objected to British newspaper people back in London making similar cracks, printing them on the front page of newspapers for gain, all without leaving the comfort and safety of their offices.

Is this a minority view these days? I don’t think so. But, with the use of increasingly graphic images of recognisable dead people, everyone who wants access to the media is forced to contemplate revealing more and more.

Yesterday, in the Sunday Independent,there was an interview with Anne McCabe, the widow of Garda Jerry McCabe who was murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1996. On the left is a nice picture of Mrs McCabe, smiling against a stormy sky. On the right side is a smaller picture of her husband's corpse, sitting in the Garda car in which he died.

It is devoutly to be hoped that Mrs McCabe gave her consent for this juxtaposition. Even if she did, one is still left asking whether this is what it really takes to keep Martin McGuinness out of the Áras. The end does not justify the means – isn’t that what we were always saying to Martin?