Was it ethical to publish photos of Ghadafi’s death?

After an entire summer of controversy, Moammar Gadhafi has again emerged in the news, this time because of his death.

After being ambushed in his caravan, Gadhafi was beaten and killed by rebels who quickly moved to take photos and video of the beating.

Once the news hit, the photos and videos taken were published by some news outlets while others left the visuals out of their papers and websites, citing that it would be a breach of publication ethics to post such gruesome images for the public.

In the opinion of this editorial board, the photos are an important part of the news story.
Running the photo would allow for proof that Gadhafi was dead. It would also allow for the public to get a full disclosure of the news at hand.

By holding back the information, news outlets would be doing the public a disservice in censoring the media in an attempt to be less disturbing.

It is not the job of news media to decide what content is appropriate for the general public to view. Instead, it is their job to give as full and complete an analysis of the information as is available. Instead, news should give a fair representation of the way the events actually played out.

In this situation, the news coverage would not have been a complete representation of the true events if it did not include the video recordings and photos taken by the rebels, making that material not only able to be printed but necessary in many ways.

Additionally, the Internet makes it even more necessary to publish the content. One of the main concerns of printing a photo of death and blood would be the effect of these photos lying around for children and unintended audiences to see.

In the case of the Internet, content must actually be pursued in many cases, and therefore allows for a more graphic representation of the news at play.

So, even if the content was not appropriate for a newspaper’s front page, it could still have run on the website. In the digital age of cell phone cameras and webcams, it is becoming easier to attain such images in news stories.

It is within the rights of news outlets to publish such content — even if it becomes gruesome — in an attempt to better educate and inform the public.