Journalism 3 Task PDF

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JOURNALISM 3 – TASK 1 JRNS7311

CONTENT’S PAGE QUESTION 1 – THE BANG BANG CLUB ESSAY………………………Pg. 2 Q1 CONTINUED………………………………………………………….....Pg. 3 Q1 CONTINUED …………………………………………………………….Pg. 4 Q1 CONTINUED …………………………………………………………… Pg. 5 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….Pg. 6

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QUESTION 1 THE BANG BANG CLUB ESSAY The Bang Bang Club is a real-life events story focusing on four combat photographers who document the violent and horrific days of the apartheid era in South Africa. The world had come to know about the malicious ways of apartheid and how it affected the people of South Africa, through the work and images that exposed the violence at that time, with the help of the photographs that were taken by these four young men. They also faced many ethical dilemmas due to their vivid photographs. The essay objectives that will be discussed is the journalistic ethics and the problems that photojournalists faced during the apartheid era and, the ethical issues that the photojournalists tackled during the unstable apartheid regime. In the 1990-1994 time frame in the past, apartheid was a reality for the people in South Africa, it was a system of racial segregation and discrimination, as the white people were regarded as being superior than the black people as well as other races in South Africa, who were mistreated by the white people. Journalistic ethics consist of truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, accountability and humanity, and these core ethics are important for every journalist to follow. The more journalistic ethical principles is to seek truth and to report it, minimize harm, be accountable and transparent, and to act independently. Journalists and photojournalists faced many ethical problems during the apartheid era, as their work was always under scrutiny by the public eye and the danger that their work posed to their own lives was a major concern. The job of a journalist and photojournalist was dangerous in the apartheid regime, because during that period, everybody was agitated and violent due to the situation of South Africa and the racial discrimination that was present within South Africa, there were many wars and violent retaliation outbreaks around the country. Journalists in apartheid South Africa had to make sure their wording was accurate as not to stir up racial debates or hatred with those reading their stories or viewing their photographs. Journalists in the apartheid era were not allowed to quote anything said by Nelson Mandela, while he was in jail, and as the ANC was banned at that time and they could stir up conflict, therefore it was hard for journalists to report accurately on their work as there was many implications when it came to reporting. Regulations and legislation law such as Censorship was a law that all journalists had to follow, because censorship prevented journalists from reporting about any issue within the apartheid era that criticized the government. It is the job of a journalist and a photojournalist to have a code of professional ethics, which includes the need to be fair to all parties that are involved in any news story. Journalists and photojournalists faced a lot of pressure from various sources, who all try to make the journalist behave in a manner that is unethical. It is vital for journalists and photojournalists to resist all forms of pressure put on them, some of the unethical pressures are threats, bribes and personal convictions. In the Bang 2

Bang Club, there are four combat photographers, Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and Joao Silva, who all face dilemmas in their work when they photographed images during the violent combats that were taking place in the apartheid era. Greg Marinovich was put under scrutiny when he captured truly grotesque images of a supposedly Xhosa man who was set on fire by the Zulu people in a township. The police put Marinovich under scrutiny as they claimed he was witnessing a murder and did nothing to prevent it from happening and was simply taking pictures of the burning corpse. Marinovich did not go to testify about the perpetrators as he feared that the township people would come after him and threaten him as well as kill him themselves. Marinovich acted in an ethical manner in keeping to his word where he just took photographs and did not mention any names of the perpetrators, as he feared for his well-being. Greg’s sources were sacred to him and he preserved the identities and integrity of the perpetrators when he was sentenced to testify in court about what he had witnessed regarding the man being burned alive in front of him. The secret war that is dealt with in The Bang Bang Club was started by the ruling apartheid government, between 1990 and 1994, which was a war against Nelson Mandela’s ANC party and its supporters. In this hidden war, the government had found a powerful ally which was the Inkatha movement which involved their thousands of Zulu warriors. In the opening scene of the film, it shows the viewer how Greg Marinovich drives into Soweto, stops his car and grabs his camera to go look at the violent commotion that is transpiring. When he gets to the scene there is a man that is killed brutally, Greg and the other three photographers, Ken, Kevin and Joao, who not even look at the dead corpse before them, rush to grab their cameras and start snapping images instantly. When the three photographers get their shots, they get up and leave, but Greg wants to find out why the man was killed and he wants to hear the other side of the story from the perpetrators who killed the victim, so he follows the Zulu’s, who head off to Nancefield Workers’ Hostel in Soweto Township. Greg is a photojournalist that is willing to risk his own life in an attempt to find out both sides of this secret war that is taking place between both the Zulu’s and the Xhosa people. He is intrigued and curious to get to the bottom of the story. At first when Greg enters the Township, he is noticed and is threatened by the Zulu people who chase him, until he gets to the chief’s hostel, where the chief tells Greg all about how they will kill any Xhosa follower, as Mandela is a Xhosa and they have to die. It is in this scene that Greg witnesses the burning and stabbing of the Xhosa man, and this is where Greg takes his images which he then offers to The Star press, and because of the photographs of the burning man, and the close-up nature of the image, Greg earns himself a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. Due to Greg’s success on those images, Ken, Joao and Kevin all cheer him and yell out, “It’s pay day!”, this statement made by the members of The Bang Bang Club signifies that the main aim of the photojournalist is to indulge in the personal ego and to make money whilst exploiting victims of human rights abuse. It is ethically problematic for viewers when they witness how the members of The Bang Bang Club do not display any sympathy for the victims of this secret war. We agree that the job of a photojournalist is to get paid, but it is the ethical predicament 3

of exploitation that surrounds the photography taken by Greg and the other members. It is the photojournalists role to hold human rights violators and the governments interpretation, but in this regard of the film, it does not represent the accuracy within the context of the film and therefore it devalues the work that is done by Greg, Ken, Kevin and Joao. Just as the perpetrators pulled the trigger to their guns with the purpose to kill the victim, the conflict photojournalist aims their weapon, which is the camera lens and clicks it, which shoots a purposeful, non-lethal retribution against the human rights abusers. This draws the relationship between those who shoot rounds of ammunition and the members of The Bang Bang Club shooting rolls of film from their camera. The emotional connection is detached from the photographer and his subjects. This does not suggest that violent or graphic images are wrong, but the photojournalists in The Bang Bang Club did not make a difference to what they thought was wrong and therefore they were not represented in a fair manner. The scene when there was an attack in the Xhosa townships, and Greg rushes with his camera to the township, where Robin Comley goes along with him, as the father of the deceased child tells Greg what happened and how the attackers had killed his son in such a gruesome and horrific way, Greg does not sympathise with the father of the child but asks to see the son, where he is taken to a back room and there the disfigured corpse lies, Greg takes his photographs and carries on taking them in a normal manner, until he needs assistance from Robin to hold a lamp for light, Robin cannot handle seeing the disfigured and mutilated corpse and she displays a great amount of emotion as she cannot stand to see the sight of such a horrific thing. Greg shows no emotion to seeing a young child brutally slain in such a manner. This shows us how Greg is prone to viewing such sights and brutal killings that he is not fazed by them but would rather get the photograph for his own purpose and ignore the fact that that person is a human being just like he is, this is where photojournalists are put under scrutiny and are viewed as being incorrect in their profession. For the members of The Bang Bang Club, and especially with Greg, the more violent the image that was captured, the greater it would be to their benefit as they had to keep the photographs fresh and have the aim to drastically shock their audiences by amplifying the level of violence that was portrayed in their photographs, which had ultimately created an emotional increase among their audiences, as it was reaching international levels. Therefore, in The Bang Bang Club a picture is worth a thousand words. The effect of a news story telling us about the events of the secret war would not be as effective as actually seeing the gruesome images of the murders of people and the guns being fired, the corpses lying in the vicinity of the townships and the hatred between the opposing sides. Kevin Carter goes to Sudan to capture photographs on the Sudanese people and the manner in which they are in and near the UN Feeding Station in Ayod Hamlet in Sudan, he comes across a little Sudanese girl who looks undernourished and clearly suffering from starvation where behind here she is stalked by a vulture who preys on her and awaits her death. By Kevin capturing this image, he wins a Pulitzer Prize and his photographs of this Sudanese girl and the vulture become famous internationally. Kevin is put into an ethical dilemma in this case as although the picture is newsworthy where it depicts the events of starvation in Sudan, majority of people around the world argue that why did 4

Kevin not chase away the vulture or do anything to help the little girl. This messed Kevin up emotionally and physically as he ended up committing suicide. Prior to him ending his own life, when he was interviewed on radio, he said, “You go out and you see evil and bad things, you want to do something about it, so you take the picture that shows it, and not everybody likes what they see.” Kevin is simply saying that he creates awareness through his images, which is ultimately the aim of a photojournalist. All the photojournalists had experienced great grief and flashing images of murders and nightmares of killings due to this secret war, after all the killings of the victims had been done right in front of their own eyes. It affected them to a great extent but they had to make money by capturing the photographs in order to leave a satisfactory and comfortable life. The four photojournalists in The Bang Bang Club faced many ethical dilemmas due to the nature of their images during the apartheid regime. The images that the captured had the power to shape public sentiment and public policy, which makes the role of photojournalism very important in the world we live in today. They went against their ethical values in order to show the world the evil doings of the apartheid era.

Word Count: 2054 words.

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References Available at https://carletonjhr.com/2014/12/06/essay-the-bang-bang-club-takes-aim-atthe-integrity-of-conflict-photojournalists/ [Online]. [Accessed on 02/03/2018]. IIE Module Manual. 2018. Journalism 7311. (First Edition: 2017). Available at http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US04/21/conflict.journalists.bang.bang.club/ [Online]. [Accessed on 02/03/2018]. Available at www.thinkprocess.org [Online]. [Accessed on 02/03/2018]. Available at www.thenewsmanual.net [Online]. [Accessed on 02/03/2018]. Available at www.ashford.edu [Online]. [Accessed on 03/03/2018]. Available at www.uni.edu [Online]. [Accessed on 04/03/2018]. Ethical Journalism Network. 2016. Ethical Journalism Network. Available at http://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org [Accessed on 05/03/2018].

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