Why we chose to publish a harrowing image of death in the Rio Grande

Were we right to publish the now-famous photograph of Oscar Ramirez and his daughter Valeria? Indeed, not only to publish it but to give it front full-page treatment in The Independent Daily Edition, and feature it prominently on the website?

We judge that we were.

In 2015, we published another controversial image – the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean. At a time when the migration crisis was being used and abused by populist politicians and right-wing newspapers set upon provoking anger, it was right that people should instead be confronted with the facts, and in the most graphic form.

Anger should be restrained by the antidote of compassion. So it was, at least for a time. Governments thought again about refugees. It proved, once again, the power of the picture.

We followed that editorial precedent in our use of this latest shocking picture, and in telling the tragic story of Oscar, his family and their journey. Again, it presents the most graphic evidence that desperate migrants are not “animals” or criminals attempting to “infest”, in this case, America. They are human beings.

But our approach, this time, was also carefully adapted for social media. On our Facebook page, we were in any case obliged to pixelate some details because of Facebook’s rules on taste and decency. We did not object to that, given that interested readers could see our treatment of the story and commentaries on it – if they wished.

We took a similar approach on Twitter, using a pixelated version which gave users the opportunity, in effect, to consent to seeing such a distressing image if they clicked through. Our editorial judgments therefore tried to take account of the different nature of the various media we use.

More broadly, the danger is that, especially in a digital world, with so many media channels, such photo-journalism can lose its impact with overuse. The currency, so to speak, becomes devalued if people become inured to its impact.

Then again, when we think of the memorable news photographs of the past, they become familiar through repetition: the nine-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running naked from a napalm attack during the Vietnam war; Sharbat Bibi, the “Afghan girl” in a Pakistani refugee centre with her piercing green eyes; or another little Syrian boy, Omran Daqneesh, covered in dust and blood, sitting, bewildered in the back of an ambulance, a symbol of that pitiless conflict. (All these people, by the way, still alive).

We know them well – yet they all retain their capacity to move us. Perhaps it is in the framing and composition, perhaps because they are all young people, but they compel us to share their traumas.

In any case, and without wishing to sound too pompous, we have to strive to emulate what Martin Luther said about conscience. In our trade of journalism, we can but take a stand, and we can do no other. The world needs to see.

Yours,

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor