Images That Altered History

Photojournalists and videographers are in a profession that has the power to alter history. We were reminded of this once again with the May, 2004 release of the prisoner torture photos and videos from Iraq--images that are too graphic to show in this type of forum.

As in many such cases in the last 50 or more years, the written descriptions of the events, which may have proceeded the images, seemed to stir comparatively little public response. It was the graphic images appearing on TV and in the print media that moved people to action.

Most college people are too young to remember the famous May 3, 1963 photo of the police dog attacking a young restrained black man marching for his civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama. But that photo, along with the film of police attacks on both black and white people marching for civil rights, brought to light what was taking place in the South. Political pressure resulted, and action was taken.

In addition to the 16mm film coverage of the Vietnam War shown on TV each night during that era, three specific photos profoundly affected public opinion.

• The first was the 1968 photo of a Vietnamese general executing a suspected Viet Cong guerilla on a public street. Much of the U.S. public wondered if they were supporting a cause that had little respect for the principles of law and justice.
  
  
• The second, was the 1972 photo of the nine year-old girl running in a road in Vietnam, screaming in pain after being bombed with burning napalm. She and numerous women and children in the photo were trying to flee the U.S. attack. According to the editors of Life magazine that ran the photo, "More than any other single image [this] made American conscious of the full horror of the Vietnam War."
  
  
• And finally, from that era there is the image of the 1970 student demonstration against the Vietnam War on the Ohio State University campus. Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on the protesters, killing four students. The photo shows a screaming woman in the street kneeling over the body of a dead student. In a seeming understatement, USA Today editor, Edward Walkin, said,"...Students questioned a government that killed them for speaking out."

More recently, we have the infamous and widely-publicized video of Rodney King, a black man, being beaten by Los Angeles police in March, 1991.

Will anyone who has ever seen the images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001, be able for forget what happened on that day?

And, finally, we come back to the graphic May, 2004 photos and video footage showing Iraq prisoner abuse — photos that ended up on "60 Minutes II" after months of written attempts by different agencies to get something done about the abuse seemed to fall on deaf ears. However, once the images appeared on TV, investigations were launched within days.

We know that horrific abuses have and are taking place all over the world — abuses that aren't photographically documented — or if they are, the images are confiscated or classified before they can be published or broadcast. Television is a visual medium, and without video footage or photos, stories such as this may not make it into the general public awareness. That's unfortunate, but it underlines the power that photojournalists and videographers can have in sparking needed social and political change.

With so many people owning inconspicuous video and still cameras today, it has become much more difficult to hide these abuses.

In response to these one writer made the comment that they were all negative images.

Whereas they could be seen in this way, there is also the fact many "negative images" end up being the catalyst for positive change.

Denny Barberio asked his class to make a list of positive images. This was what his class came up with:

1. the moon walk
2. the Berlin Wall coming down
3. the moon walk
4. The picture of the Russian Sputnik that pushed the US into the space race
5. The march on Washington that helped expose racism.
6. Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial
7. The statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down.
8. The image of the Women’s Suffrage movement giving women the right to vote
9. The images of Afghanistan girls sitting in a classroom.

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