The tenuous boundaries of sensationalism

The death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi led to the front pages of newspapers around the world And for the opening of newspaper and portal websites, the photo of the Libyan dictator's corpse. The raw display of Gaddafi's disfigured body sparked a discussion about the limits of disseminating sensationalist photos, especially regarding the thin line that separates journalism, the obligation to inform, and pure and simple sensationalism.

In this respect, the Spanish newspaper El País, considered one of the best in the world, offered an interesting reflection, precisely because it had received criticism for the blatant publication of the photo of Gaddafi's corpse. "The problem with sensationalism is that it has no well-defined boundaries. While an image may be acceptable to one reader, another may consider it intolerably morbid," says Milagros Pérez Oliva in the newspaper's opinion column.

Everyone agrees that the photos and videos published about Gaddafi's capture are extremely violent. Many newspapers downplayed the publication, using alternative photos on their front pages, showing the celebrations or the scene of the capture. To what extent do the editors of El País justify publishing it on their front page?

Ricardo Gutiérrez, the Spanish newspaper's photography editor-in-chief, assures that neither he nor the other officials at the newspaper had the slightest doubt: the informative value was unquestionable. The only doubt that arose was about its authenticity, since the image was not entirely clear and the same sources had previously announced the capture of one of the colonel's sons, a fact that later proved untrue. Therefore, the newspaper took this precaution.

Readers in Spain and abroad complained about the image of Gaddafi's dead body occupying the front page of the newspaper's website. “The image is quite unpleasant, and I know it's part of a news story and therefore they have to publish it, but I'm sure many readers would appreciate a warning about the violence of the content,” said Álvaro Corral Matute, a reader from London. “I can't help it, it disgusts me to look at the photo of the dead dictator, bloodied and with the morbid appearance of a corpse. The cruelty of death shouldn't appear on the newspaper's front page,” said José Fuentes, a Spanish reader.

The El País editorialist says, “We live in a society where everything that happens ends up being recorded and everything can be transmitted to the world instantly, so the dilemma of whether or not to publish this type of image appears more and more frequently. As the circulation of scandalous images has increased, so has tolerance, both among editors and readers. However, there will always be readers who disagree.”

But, according to El País editorialists, since the boundaries of sensationalism are imprecise, upon receiving the first complaints, the newspaper wanted to verify how these images were being treated on Thursday afternoon, when the dictator's death became news, by the websites and front pages of other world-renowned newspapers.

In the British press, The Guardian featured a photo of Gaddafi on its website's homepage, but with a reserved treatment: the photo of the corpse was the first of a mosaic of four that, together, occupied a more discreet space. The Times of London showed a large photo of Gaddafi, still alive but bloodied, on its homepage, and linked to a gallery of images that included the controversial photo of the corpse.

The Independent, from London, also opened its digital edition with the news, but did not include a photo of Gaddafi at the beginning. The news article, inside the website, included an image of the dead colonel within a gallery of other images. The print edition featured four images of Gaddafi's death. The Daily Mail dedicated its entire front page to a photo of the dictator, still alive and wounded. The French newspaper Le Monde opened with a large photo on its website, but it wasn't of the dead colonel, but of a young man displaying a poster with the image of the dead dictator; it was a very indirect way of showing the corpse, says Milagros Pérez Oliva. La Repubblica, in Italy, showed two large photos on its front page: one of a young man displaying Gaddafi's pistol and another of the corpse.

On the other side of the Atlantic, El País analyzes, The Washington Post did not feature photos of the dictator on its cover, neither alive nor dead. The news story linked to a video of his capture and a photo gallery, which included one of his corpse. “And what was The New York Times, the leading newspaper for other newspapers in the world, doing? At the moment of Gaddafi's death, it also opened its digital edition, and like El País, it featured a photo gallery at the top of its website. However, the one that appeared prominently in first place was not of the dead colonel, but one showing the rebels' jubilation.

In the gallery, the photo of the corpse was last on the page, and when the reader tried to access it, a warning appeared in large characters: “The following photo is an image of what is said to be Gaddafi’s corpse.” What a difference compared to other newspapers! That is why the New York Times is always a benchmark for world journalism.

The columnist concludes by saying that “there is no doubt that in such notorious cases as this, a contagion phenomenon occurs: what sense does it make to not publish an image that will circulate on the internet and be reproduced on all television channels? Precisely because this “herd” factor plays in favor of sensationalism, it is important that rigorous newspapers have stable criteria to adhere to. The first boundary is clear: informative value must prevail over the capacity for impact. In this case, the image of Gaddafi dead belongs to the same category as the corpse of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, overthrown in 1989, or that of Benito Mussolini's body, hanging by his feet in a Milan square after being executed in 1945.”

El País, like other Brazilian newspapers, says that the editors of the aforementioned newspapers agreed that the informative value of the image justified its publication. However, not all of them placed it on the cover or front page of their websites, nor did they all give it the same treatment.

From this, it can be deduced that the boundary of sensationalism, in these cases, lies in the measure, in the details. Several of these newspapers applied an implicit criterion in this case: that the reader should not be surprised by such an unpleasant image, but that they should be able to access it if they wish to see it. According to Milagros Pérez Oliva, "The New York Times applied this criterion in the most refined way."