The
readers' editor on ... pictures of the dead, and the
legitimacy of 'mules'
I have been looking at two complaints
dealing, broadly, with the reporting of race. One concerned
the publication of the photograph of a Kenyan man who
had died as a result of Aids. The other concerned the
use of the term "mules" to describe drug couriers,
particularly when applied to Jamaican women.
The first complainant said he would
boycott the paper unless he was given an acceptable
reason for the use of the picture of the dead man. He
saw it as an example of what I described on a previous
occasion as the prejudice of distance, although he did
not use that term. "What you cannot get away with
in your own country or culture should not be an issue
to play with when it relates to other cultures,"
he said. Would we, he asked, publish a picture of a
dead white person?
The question has been asked and discussed
before. In fact, the Guardian has used pictures of dead
white people in Northern Ireland, in former Yugoslavia,
and in Zimbabwe, for example. On each occasion the particular
circumstances have been considered.
A Guardian journalist who has reported
extensively on Aids in Africa told me: "Obviously
it goes without saying that we must not show a dead
black man if we would not show a dead white man in a
similar situation in this country. If Aids were taking
as devastating a toll in the UK as it is doing in sub-Saharan
Africa, I think it is fairly safe to say that we would
indeed be showing pictures of white people who have
died ... I'm not against the use of pictures of the
dead - black or white - if they are powerful images
that move the reader, enhance understanding of the story
and are acceptable to the family."
The story in this case was about the
way in which a cultural custom requiring the family
of a dead person to cater for mourners on a comparatively
lavish scale was imposing ruinous burdens. The increased
frequency of death due to Aids was a significant exacerbating
factor in a town, described as the poorest in Kenya,
in a province with the country's highest rate of HIV.
The photograph, taken independently
of the written report, showed Jarred Apamo in his coffin,
with his youngest daughter looking through a window
in the raised lid. He had died in Nairobi as a result
of Aids and been taken back for burial in the same part
of western Kenya, the home of the Luo people, from which
the Guardian report was filed. The photographer, who
has been living and working in Kenya for 18 years, had
followed the body on this last journey with the full
cooperation of Mr Apamo's family.
The assistant picture editor who selected
the photograph said, "If we had run a story on
funerals in Ireland, Spain or Italy, where caskets are
often open, we might have used a very similar picture."
In the circumstances I hope the reader
who complained will come to share my view that the use
of the picture was appropriate and justified.
The second complainant objected to
the term "mules" as "dehumanising and
sexist". Her complaint was prompted by the repeated
incidence of the term in recent Guardian articles about
Jamaican women who were used for the purpose of smuggling
heroin, usually by swallowing it in latex wrappers.
She addressed her complaint initially
to the journalist who had written two of these articles.
In her letter, she acknowledged the attention paid to
"the political and social circumstances" of
the women but objected to, and called for the complete
abandonment of, the "deeply offensive" label
"mules".
In fact, these particular articles
were very clearly concerned with the desperate circumstances
of the women who were driven to act in this role and
with the "devastating" effect on their families
and communities. In one of the pieces the journalist
visited Jamaica to look at the contributory causes.
At the time of her writing (October last year) the 450
Jamaican women serving sentences after conviction for
carrying wraps of cocaine in their bodies accounted
for more than 10% of all foreign women in prison in
Britain.
The term "mule" in the Guardian
has been applied not only to women, but to men, and
to both black and white people. According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, it has been used in connection with
drugs since at least 1935.
In the examples I have looked at it
has almost always been used in a context that would
imply sympathy for the people to whom the term, in the
sense we understand it, was accurately applied. The
negative effect of frequent repetition should, however,
be considered.
· The picture of Mr Apamo was
used on January 10. The issue of "mules" was
raised by Ligali (www.ligali.org).
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