A open letter to international media outlets
As journalists, we are programmed to run toward danger. We do it daily, covering everything from war and natural disasters to political uprisings. We are fearless when it comes to chasing stories, driven to get there first and leave last. We evaluate the risks of each situation and make decisions about how to best report a story based on past experience and know how to ‘minimize harm’. But how many times we evaluate our acts and take ownership how we represent such phenomenal.
A post by my friend and colleague Nana Kofi Acquah on his Instagram account with the caption: “Just before you start arriving in Africa with your cameras to document Covid-19…My condolences to all who’ve lost loved ones because of Covid-19. I pray for you all everyday. May we overcome this together.”
It has sparked a very interesting conversation online and I have been thinking the same since the time I was searching image reference for Covid-19 and Ebola outbreak. Every single photograph of a disaster you see in Europe and America is dignified, and it doesn’t take away from the tragedy, but the suffering in those images is humanized. Why doesn’t that happen when it comes to African and Asian stories? Why this can not be done with black and brown bodies.
To show the effects of infectious diseases to the world, photographers have been among those in close proximity to outbreaks. As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise globally, and the year-and-a-half-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo finally comes to a close, covering these health emergencies is both essential and dangerous. From the practical to the conceptual, can we as photographers tell these stories, drive impact, and minimize risk both for ourselves and our subjects?
This was natgeo during Ebola epidemic. While they deleted this photograph from Instagram feed after nowhitesaviors and some of us complained. Dignity is reserved for the western world. If you follow photojournalism and what are “winning” photographs you’ll know we award images that depict the pain and suffering of the most vulnerable brown and black peoples.
Photographer Nana Kofi Acquah said in an interview, “I think the most dominant images are actually not photographs. The most dominant images are words. And if you look at the words of politicians, for example, “The China virus! The Mexicans!”, you realize we live in a time when all that used to be said in secret is now openly said by politicians, is normalized”. We have to overcome this through media house and through our lens and pen. Another interesting aspect of COVID-19 is that it has flipped the world upside down. Isn’t it ironic to see countries in Africa and Latin America and Asia now closing its borders to people from Europe and the United States? Now people from everywhere in the world will understand why people flee war and seek asylum in other countries.
I also hope print media and news agencies and its representatives will reconsider their viewpoints and start to document disasters, epidemic and pandemic in more dignified wise. By minimize harm and filtering good from bad, and good from good.
