While working for a news programme many years back my boss remarked that ‘kids, people crying and dying in front of camera’ are great television.  It is a known fact that children are natural actors and perform in front of camera. The young and innocent faces attract everybody’s attention. 

But while covering people in distress and dying a question of ethics comes in. The puritans will always say that don’t show people crying or dying on camera.  But some stories will require channels to show the people’s distress to  the authorities to take notice and act.  While there will, of course be other stories which need not show death or such distress on TV on ethical grounds.  Where does one draw the line? 

Nearly a year back the videos of Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan were shown by many channels.  A girl being flogged and few villagers being shot dead on camera.  The blood and the gore and close up shots were mosaiced but still the shots did hit the viewer hard.  The story and the shots were of course needed to highlight the atrocities.  Going by the puritan version one should not have shown them at all… at least the killings.  A woman and a man turning lifeless in front of the camera was obviously horrific.  Similar video footage appeared of Sri Lankan soldiers killing unarmed (allegedly) Tamil detainees. The footage appalled many.  It was revolting for people watching news on their dinner table.  But can anybody dispute that showing the footage was important to highlight human rights violation.

When and what to show does remain a grey area.  Many times the news editor is forced to take a decision at the spur of the movement.  While at other times, he is pressurised by rival channels showing the same footage to show people dying on camera.

The worst of such visuals was that of a man burning himself in front of the camera.  Many channels covered this event.  None of the cameramen of course took the initiative to stop the man.  Neither did they attempt to douse the fire they kept covering the event.  So definitely this was one of those times, when one could clearly say, the media did something unethical. 

But in many other cases, though sensational, coverage of such events do make a big impact.  They are required to wake up the authorities or the world (such as the case of atroctities of Taliban).