The Power in Publishing Protest Photography

 Cameron Robertson

cr102019@ohio.edu

Photojournalism is a key element of journalistic storytelling, and has had such a heavy influence on stories for many years. Some of the most devastating and tragic moments in our history have been covered through photojournalism and have influenced society through this method of communication to the public. But with the rise of technology and smart phones, anyone can be a photojournalist nowadays.

At any point in your daily routine, you can be captured in a photo by someone's smart phone, even without knowing. Many people have been captured doing good things and bad things courtesy of smart phones due to the sheer nature of their ownership. This takes some of the professional aspects out of photojournalism, as now basically anyone can be a photojournalist, simply with their smart phones.

In today's world, that's a big development. With the amount of protests, rallies, and public gatherings that have occurred in America since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, thousands of photos and videos from the Black Lives Matter movement have appeared on social media and from different news publications.

Photo via Axios

The images often invoke emotion and convey very powerful messages. The question, however, deals with consent to appear in photos. Should average citizens be able to shown in these photos without consenting to them being posted? Protests have a very polarizing effect on society: some people see them as an advocation for basic human rights, while others will argue that the protests are politically charged. This can cause an issue of some people not wanting to be in these photos.

The idea of consent isn't really possible with random citizens posting to social media, but it is possible by major news corporations. But they also have a dilemma. These photos can be extremely powerful and important to the story they are covering, but they also have an ethical duty to minimize harm towards the public. 

At the same time, it's an extremely difficult process to try and get the consent of all people who are at a protest. There can be anywhere from hundreds to thousands of citizens at these protests, and could be hundreds of faces in a photo. The effort to get consent from all those individuals can be challenging and exhausting. An article from a PhotoShelter blog discusses blurring certain citizen's faces, but then that can take the power out of the photo and ruin its contribution to the story. 

At the end of the day, news organizations must always have ethical pursuits, so they most definitely should attempt to gain consent to publish photos from protests. They are professionally and ethically held to a higher standard, and have more power in publishing these photos than the average person on social media. 

There's a power in publishing, and it's one that needs to be used ethically and responsibly.