controversial essay response

Discussion prompt: In this module, we briefly touched on the topic of compassion fatigue as it relates to public exposure to images of war and human suffering. With these sources in mind, consider the following question: Can compassion fatigue be reconciled with the need to bear witness? Is it possible to bear witness and reach an audience despite the risk/existence of compassion fatigue?  Use examples from the module content to illustrate your argument.

Another element must be considered in order to bridge the gap between the two extremes of bearing witness and experiencing compassion fatigue.  Simply witnessing or exposing situations falls short of what is truly required.  An event doesn’t just need to be perceived; there needs to be a call to action.  If there is no nuance, no greater purpose, exposing or recalling an event becomes repetitive at best, exploitative at worst.  But sadly the formula for conflict photography (identify conflict area, photograph conflict, research only to inform captions, leave) only witnesses, and borders on the exploitative.  There is something morally unsound about conflict photographers who hastily vault from exotic disaster to exotic disaster, yet do quite little to sincerely raise awareness of the greater systems of oppression at work.  It brings to mind the Kevin Carter image of vultures surrounding a frail, dying, African girl.  The standards of conflict photography enable unbiased journalism, but when exercised to the extreme, also enable career photojournalists to become those vultures.  This is one of the sources of compassion fatigue.

That isn’t to say that every photojournalist is a vulture, and that isn’t to say that bearing witness is “wrong,” but the standard practice of photojournalism, the standard of only “bearing witness,” is no longer the best course of action, or inaction.  But there are photojournalists, like James Nachtway (discussed at length in our module,) who follow a different formula.  When Nachtway photographs war and conflict, his goal is to show “the true face of war,” and more often than not, a photo becomes an “anti-war photograph.”  Unlike his colleagues who might cover a topic to reaffirm their own worth, ride an adrenaline rush, or simply get paid (all motivations photojournalists shared in the module), Nachtway is truly invested in the cause.  He goes beyond passive witnessing; he integrates himself into the suffering.  Sometimes true objectivity, showcasing the true realities and horrors of a situation, requires and becomes something else.  One prime example of this is his tuberculosis series.  Tuberculosis isn’t a lucrative editorial topic, but the series wasn’t about a paycheck; it was about engaging a relatively rare disease, to some parts of the work, outrageously ignored and running rampant in the “third world.”  And it wasn’t about exploiting those affected; it was photographed with involved compassion.  Another topic photojournalists and the general media ignored was his series on Romanian orphanages.  Unfortunately, and rather frequently, thinking of “the children” only applies if ads can be sold alongside it.  When no major magazines wanted to finance him, he financed the series himself.  He pushed and pushed until there WAS an audience, one who would not ignore him under capitalism.  His resilience and authenticity overcame both consumer apathy and compassion fatigue.

Regrettably, not every photographer is like this.  Some will argue that Nachtway’s involvement violates the expectations of objectivity in photojournalism, that integrating yourself violates the ethics of removed observation.  But in our changing world, merely presenting the facts falls short of what’s necessary.  In our nuanced world, we need to reach for higher ethical standards.  We must move from conventional levels of moral reasoning, simply bearing witness, into the post-conventional, engaging with our subjects.  Certain guidelines and philosophies should not be absolute; rules are flexible and morality is relative.  Because if those guidelines enable Kevin Carter’s 1994 award-winning photograph of a starving Sudanese girl, we are too far gone; those rules are no longer best serving those who are being photographed.  A photographer’s instincts shouldn’t just be to the shot, but to the subject.  A quote that sums it up best is the damnation of a livid critic from the module: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”  Our quest to remain uninvolved observers shouldn’t cause a crisis of self.  Perhaps if another standard of photojournalism was in play, Kevin Carter would not have taken his own life.

This all begs the question: in our quest to serve the “greater good” with our photography, whose “good” are we really serving?  Those affected by these tragedies, to specific publications and media conglomerates, or to the public?  The lines and motivations are blurred.  To the extreme, photojournalists become predatory paparazzi, swarming a site in overabundance, then fleeing en masse to their next meal.  Or they become personalities in their own right, no longer giving voices to the voiceless, but packing their portfolios.   We must work to establish a global model, perhaps like Nachtway’s, where complicity and authenticity align with morality.  Where empathy is the standard of practice, not removed objectivity.  Where photography hits the soul without being overly or needlessly invasive. 

The module touched upon the oversaturation of conflict photography, but all media is oversaturated.  So much media demands our attention that we need to tune out, just to save our overwhelmed states of mind.  We can’t possibly keep up with all the corpses, human debris, and “mourning shots” the media distributes ad nauseam.  For media producers, when sincere grief cannot be elicited, the mourning shot becomes more and more important.  But as we, their audience, look at thousands of images of grieving portraits, and subjects holding up the portraits of those they’ve lost, we do not experience grief by proxy.  The mourning shot has become so oversaturated, so flippantly overused, that it has become a cliché.  They no longer work; they no longer elicit grief.  Media producers sequence conflict shot after conflict shot, hoping to resonate with the audience, but to no end.  There comes a point where gore is just gratuitous; the gore isn’t “proving” anything.  Unfortunately we have reached that point of consumer apathy and compassion fatigue. Unfortunately, we have proven Susan Sontag right.  Just as she was quoted years ago, we have been exposed to so many traumatic images that suffering has become “less real.”  Contrary to popular belief, “images anesthetize;” oversaturation does not make us overly empathetic.  Instead we are numb, devoid of compassion.

Can compassion fatigue be reconciled with the need to bear witness?  The odds are stacked against it.  Our reportage is oversaturated and sensationalized, with gratuitous gore; its very nature is funded to “sell” first, and inform second.  And the lens (both physical and philosophical) of individual photojournalists descending upon scenes, with other intentions besides journalism, forms a palpable distance between the photographer, their subjects, and their intended audience.  It’s no wonder there is an epidemic of compassion fatigue and consumer apathy.  The masses are overwhelmed and powerless, especially since few photo sequences pose questions, require realizations, and offer solutions in the face of trauma.  But can compassion fatigue be reconciled with the need to bear witness?  The odds are stacked against it, but there ARE glimmers of hope.  Modules past have featured very convincing persuasive multimedia projects on climate change, health care, and immigration.  Repeated exposure of a topic in a variety of ways help solidify a concept.  The more a topic is reiterated thru touch, sight, and sound, the more it sticks.  And exposure to a topic thru different types of media, and the combination of those types, functions the same way.  Multimedia projects, more than photo essays, can act as an avenue for stronger calls of action.  People can respond to calls, if given the chance.  We want to hear suggestions, and want to be included into the “bigger picture.”  Oftentimes this takes the form of cliché and vague 5 Way You Can Save the Planet! clickbait articles, but it’s still an attempt to bridge the gap between being aware of the event, to being informed, to being invested (both emotionally and financially.)

With a more guided multimedia approach, with narration from actual witnesses bearing witness to their own event, combined with imagery not just for shock value, but for context, we can better engage an audience in our digital world.  Engaging authentically with those who have directly experienced their own disaster bridges a gap between empathy and malaise.  Reading lines of text from an unknown observer does not resonate the same as reading the handwriting or hearing the voices of those directly oppressed.  And reading lines upon lines of text in an essay does not demand the same attention as a multimedia campaign, with interactive interviews, sound clips, videos, and stills that challenge not only an audience’s attention, but their comprehension and compassion.  And with digital stills becoming less and less trusted, having a variety of media to support an event reaffirms its authenticity.  While this interactive model can’t sensibly replace breaking reportage, it CAN improve the extended feature series.  Contrary to what media conglomerates might think, this immersive integration can sell – if given the chance.  Using digital media to the fullest, letting the medium be and transform the message, can bring more readers, subscribers, advertisers, and sponsors.  We can begin to combat compassion fatigue with a more nuanced call to action through multimedia.  There is a lot at play against this proposal, but if more individuals, and certainly more news conglomerates, can switch from their established formula and adopt this new model, there’s a chance.  We can adapt.