What guidelines do you follow (or recommend) in showing wounded/dead soldiers during war coverage? Or prisoners of war? How did you arrive at those guidelines?

Mohammed el-Nawawy

Mohammed el-Nawawy’s Response: I think showing images of dead or wounded soldiers during war is essential to give the viewers a complete picture of the horrors of war. Not showing these images would mean suppressing part of the truth. A sanitized version of the war always means an unrealistic picture of the war.

I think the guidelines of showing these images should be determined by the networks themselves depending on the nature of their audiences. For example, the Arab audiences are used to watching gruesome images of war casualties because there have been several conflicts in the Middle East. That is why the images of casualties shown on al-Jazeera during the war on Iraq were not as shocking to the Arab audiences as they were to the American audiences.

The Geneva Conventions have some articles related to P.O.W.s but they mainly have to do with the way the captors treat their P.O.W.s, not the way the television networks show them to their audiences.

Marda Dunsky

Marda Dunsky’s Response: There needs to be a balance. The media should convey the unpleasant realities of war so the public can understand what is happening and what is at stake. At the same time, respect must be shown for the dignity of the deceased and the security of the captured; for the emotional distress of their families; and for public sensibilities in general.

Often this is a process of trial and error, and reader and viewer input — feedback that usually follows broadcast or publication of an image or images that are seen to have crossed a line — can contribute much to editorial decision-making in this respect. Beyond general guidelines of this need for balance, the decision-making process is probably better left to a case-by-case analysis of each individual story and the image(s) it generates.

Joan Konner

Joan Konner’s Response: I ask several questions before publishing: Does the picture tell an important and compelling story? Are the individuals identifiable? If so, has the family been notified? (If not, then I would withhold the pictures for a reasonable, but limited, period of time.) Do the pictures respect the sensibilities of the audience? I believe that gratuitous gore is pornography, with rare exceptions.

Those guidelines were evolved from personal experience and from the best traditions of the trade.