Tips for visual journalists covering crisis situations

John Jordan: "It’s so easy to descend into what a lot of photojournalists call 'suffering porn,' which just gets clicks."

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This post is part of a continuing partnership between the Global Business Journalism program and the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

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By MAGGIE AMACHER

National Press Club Journalism Institute

Images often convey impact more immediately and powerfully than words, but with that power comes the responsibility to report ethically, especially in the wake of mass casualty events like the recent Texas floods. Visual journalists must navigate difficult decisions about what to show, what to hold back, and how to treat survivors and victims with respect to trauma.

John Jordan, deputy director of photography at the Texas Tribune, spoke with the National Press Club Journalism Institute about the critical choices photojournalists face when covering a crisis.

From protecting subjects’ dignity to maintaining integrity under pressure, Jordan emphasizes the importance of compassion, thoughtfulness, and slowing down when everything seems to be speeding up.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

When covering graphic or emotionally intense content, how should journalists and editors decide what images or footage to publish?

Jordan: Every organization is different, and there are a lot of different philosophies about what you do with photography and how you treat your photographers and what you expect from them. What we expect from our photographers — above all — is their personal safety. We devote a lot of time to formal training through various programs.

For us, it’s very situational. Some of the things that we weigh against it are: Is it effective? Is it useful? Does it further the story in any way? Is it necessary? We have a whole litany of questions that we ask ourselves in almost any photographic situation. 

If a source requests anonymity, as a photo team, we’re very quick to grant it. Our process for deciding whether we should grant someone anonymity or not is really specific, as with many news organizations. With photography, it’s a lot different because there are different ways that a person’s image or their face can be used. We always err on the side of what our subjects prefer. We would never run an image of somebody if they said they don’t want my picture taken. 

A recent example is just from two days ago. We were in a reunification center in Kerrville, Texas, and there was a woman there who was willing to be interviewed but she didn’t want to have her picture taken. But she let us take pictures of just bruises on her arm that she had acquired in the process of fleeing from her home, which was being swept away.

Most people understand — even if they don’t like it — when they’re in a public situation they can be photographed and they very well might be photographed. So it’s a balancing situation. But if it was a situation where somebody could, with that particular bit of information, get themselves in trouble, that’s something that we would be very thoughtful about.

How can newsrooms balance the public’s right to see the impact of a tragedy with the risk of re-traumatizing survivors or communities?

Jordan: We recently did a story about increased migrant deaths with the militarization of the El Paso border. El Paso has always been a major crossing because there’s a big city on the other side, Ciudad Juárez, and the Rio Grande is very shallow right there, so it’s always been a place of crossing. 

We were noting — through data and through teams of people going out and searching for bodies in the desert — a sharp uptick ever since the section of the border has been militarized. People have been pushed west, and they’re dying in far greater numbers. There’s a direct data-driven correlation between these new actions and the increase in deaths. We’re out there with a photographer. We’re following around groups of volunteers that go out and try to find these bodies and try to identify them, and somehow let the relatives know. 

It was an incredibly arduous and difficult situation. We were out there very extensively with the photographer following these folks around and coming across corpses in all sorts of stages of decomposition and getting pictures. The photographer takes the pictures, but it’s up to the editors and the people back doing the production on the story to make those editorial decisions about what to run. 

We were very circumspect about what we ran. The lead photo showed two law enforcement officers loading a body in a body bag into a vehicle, and that’s the lead photo. That’s a tough and striking and difficult picture, but it’s also not a gruesome, horrifying picture. As you go down the page, a lot of photos are embedded. There’s a skull that’s uncovered toward the end of the story. All of those are striking and powerful images. The images that we had on hand were much worse.

The conversation that we had about it was not just about re-traumatizing the people that might potentially read the story, whose relatives might potentially have died out there, but it’s also about whether it furthers the story to show something really gruesome and horrifying. 

Part of the conversation that the photo team had before we were even dispersing the photos to the rest of the newsroom was about the Vietnam War. Vietnam was the first conflict where people were able to see unadulterated warfare and really horrifying and awful images. The conversation that we had was, did that era of photography and the coverage of that war desensitize people?

Photojournalists almost reinvent journalism every single day. It’s our responsibility to evolve. Part of our evolution should be to seek out impactful images, but also do as little harm as possible and also not to sensationalize them.

It’s so easy to descend into what a lot of photojournalists call “suffering porn,” which just gets clicks, it has all of these things perhaps going for it from a one perspective, but I think it’s doing not only a harm, potentially, to the victims, but also societal harm, potentially. I think you just need to be really thoughtful about it, and I think that compassion should be the first thing on your list in every instance. That should always be your first consideration.

A U.S. Navy photographer captured this image of the Japanese attack on the USS Enterprise during Worlde War II. The photojournalist was killed by the explosion. (Photo from U.S. National Archives)

What newsroom policies or frameworks can help guide visual decision-making during breaking coverage of mass casualty events?

Jordan: The other night — days into this current disaster in Kerrville — I was going through all these photo sets that came in from photographers out in the field, and I started basically having flashbacks. This is something that happens to journalists who aren’t even in the field. If you’re reporting on it or writing on it, human suffering has a tremendous impact on us as a supremely social species. 

One of the very early things that I covered was the Sutherland Springs church shooting, where a gunman killed 26 people in 2017 before he was brought down. Those things resurface. You don’t set aside your feelings, but you sort of have to suspend your feelings.

It still gets back to some really fundamental things: We want to tell a strong story. We want to tell an impactful story. We want to tell a story that might even change the way people view things or the way people do things. We don’t want to shy away from the awfulness of it, but we also want to take a careful gauge of what’s actually going to serve that purpose for us. Would it do any good? Would it change things at all?

The Texas Tribune is one of those organizations that is very prone to having enormous, almost endless discussions about these things, and we’re always going to be very cautious about what we do. If you see a shocking image on the Texas Tribune web page, you should know that there was a tremendous amount of discussion around it.

The most powerful thing that feeds into that is the work that you do day-to-day. You get up every day, and you try to do the very best work that you possibly can. I think if you do that, and you have consistent and compassionate discussions about every move that you make and every picture that you choose, that’s going to shine through as your identity as a news organization.

What best practices should reporters follow when approaching survivors or victims’ families for interviews or images?

Jordan: When it comes to children, you always ask permission. It’s situational when you’re dealing with adults. One of the ways that I break this down for myself, working with photographers and assigning them on the field, is asking: Is this person assisting us? Is this person helping us further our goal of telling a true, real, and meaningful story?

If it’s a politician who has been embezzling from the little old woman’s home for 20 years, we’re going to run his picture and we’re not going to feel bad about it. If it’s someone who’s arrested on a drug charge, we don’t run mug shots ever because that person is innocent until proven otherwise. If it’s a public figure, I think there’s a difference there. I think there’s an ethical line there. 

However, I do think that you want to err on the side of human beings. It’s important to be very thoughtful about who it is, what it is, and why it is. Remember your audience. You have a responsibility to make sure your audience is running with something that is true and is based in compassion and not based in sensationalism.

How can journalists keep improving the way they handle graphic or emotional content, especially as the news cycle gets faster and more intense?

Jordan: One of the most important things that I tell our Fellowship Program is the ability to slow down. In times of intensity, times of trouble, in times of difficulty, and in times of everything coming at you at once, one of the most valuable things that you can do is to slow down. It’s so easy to get caught up in the adrenaline and the rush of the moment. Adrenaline is not designed for quick bursts of pure reasoning. 

With covering the Texas floods right now, it’s so important to step back from it. It’s so important to breathe through it. It’s so important to stop and say: “What am I doing here and why am I doing it?” 

It’s so valuable to do the counterintuitive thing, and the counterintuitive thing is to slow down. The weird thing about slowing down is you actually wind up working faster because you’re moving in a more efficient way, just simply because you’re not being driven by the excitement or the moment. It’s not easy. It’s about finding a way of detaching yourself, remaining a journalist, but also separating and going back to your human side a little bit.

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