The Story w/ Martha MacCallum - Thursday, July 7
On today’s episode of ‘The Story’, Trace Gallagher reports Vladimir Putin threatens U.S and allies as Russians missiles struck Ukraine’s Snake Island. Plus, the White House announces new funding to upgrade U.S airports.
The New York Times suggested that media outlets should start showing the images of mass shooting victims in a new opinion piece by Charles Blow on Wednesday.
Blow opened by describing an interview by Dr. David Baum on CNN where the doctor painted a "horrific" image of victims following the Highland Park mass shooting on Monday.
"This shooting — and Baum’s description — has extended a roiling debate about whether media should show what rounds from high-powered rifles can do to the human body," Blow wrote.
Media outlets began floating the idea back in June after the shootings at an Uvalde elementary school. Blow reintroduced the topic with similar questions.
Joseph Avila, left, prays while holding flowers honoring the victims killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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"But should America be forced to confront the truth of the carnage it so often ignores? Would these images shock the country out of its morbid malaise and into action to address an unconscionable — and fully preventable — public health crisis that guns have created?" Blow asked.
Blow reported that The Journalist’s Resource at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy interviewed twelve experts on journalism ethics on whether media should start publicizing graphic images of shooting victims. Although he acknowledged several issues posed by journalists, Blow focused on comments from photographers who said the photos should be seen.
National Press Photographers Association’s News Photographer magazine editor Sue Morrow commented, "I’m of the camp that it’s about damn time that we do start publishing this stuff, with the caveat that we have to be sensitive to the relatives left behind."
A shooting on New York City's Upper East Side on Wednesday night has left one woman dead. (Citizen)
Blow said that the time has come to make the images of shooting victims public.
"I now believe that the public’s need to know has overtaken its need to be shielded from horror. In fact, on some level, not allowing the public access to some version of the gore is extending a form of disinformation, permitting a warped, naïve or incorrect impression to persist when it could be corrected," Blow wrote.
He closed comparing the images of shooting victims to circulated pictures of Emmett Till’s body. While he lamented that Till’s body didn’t move civil rights legislation, Blow nevertheless insisted that the images are necessary for the truth.
Wooden crosses are placed at a memorial dedicated to the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on June 3, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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"The first confrontation with those images galvanized the will of the oppressed to fight but not the willingness of the lawmakers to act. The status quo resists all impulse to be shocked," Blow wrote. "That is why we need to see these images not for shock value but for truth value."
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