“We must be bothered by these photos,” Pata told CBS Mornings after describing what she and other journalists had seen on the outskirts of Kiev. The war changed this week from the perspective of the media, as most people outside Ukraine experience it. Previously, the events were observed mainly from a short distance – fiery explosions recorded by cameras or drone faces of burned buildings. Now, with the Ukrainian army regaining control of villages near Kyiv that had been raped by Russian soldiers, journalists are covering the aftermath of the horrific violence at close range – corpses tied up, tortured and burned. Although there is a sense that images like these may change public opinion or have an impact on how a war unfolds, historically this has not been the case often, said Rebecca Adelman, a communications professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in war and media. information. However, several countries, including the United States and Britain, have imposed additional sanctions on Russia this week, citing atrocities in Bucha as an obligation to do more. Whatever the impact, Adelman said it was crucial to have journalists on hand to cover what was happening. “Testimony is vital, especially in cases of catastrophic loss,” he said. “Sometimes photography is all you have left.” Photos and videos from Bucha showed body bags piled in trenches, lifeless limbs protruding from hastily dug graves and corpses scattered in the streets where they fell, including a man being blown up by a bicycle. Journalists from around the world also interviewed Ukrainians coming out of their hiding places to tell stories of the barbarity they had seen from Russian soldiers. TV presenters and correspondents warned viewers that they were about to see graphic and disturbing images – a warning that came four times in an episode of “World News Tonight” on ABC. “I’m sorry I have to show you this,” CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen apologized before waving a camera to show bags of bodies stacked in a truck. “While we may want to look away, it is becoming increasingly difficult to close our eyes to what is happening,” NBC’s Nightly News presenter Lester Holt said in a warning to viewers. Veteran television news producer Rick Kaplan said that from what he saw, the news agencies were careful about what they showed without being intimidated by history. “Every day we have these images brings (the war) home more and more,” said Kaplan, a former president of both CNN and MSNBC. “It’s good that this scares us. Can you imagine if we were pessimistic about it? “ Horrible images from Bucha, in particular, have dominated the news around the world. The BBC reported on the ongoing “global disgust”. Italian state television did not warn before showing corpses with their hands tied, half-buried in sandy soil. “What you see here, unfortunately, are signs of torture on the face,” said journalist Stefania Battistini. “Everyone wears political clothes.” Telling a story on Fakty, Poland’s most popular evening news program, presenter Grzegorz Kajdanowicz said: “It is our duty to warn you, but also to show you what the Russians did in Bucha and many other places.” It was different in Russia, where state television falsely claimed that Ukraine was responsible for either killing civilians or committing a hoax. Russian television also broadcast images of corpses on Bukha, some on CNN, with the word “fake” stamped on the screen, according to the Internet Archive, a company that monitors web and television content. Russian propaganda has prompted many Western news outlets to demystify these allegations using satellite imagery to show that many of the bodies recorded on the ground this week by journalists were in the same places when Russia took control of the city. Some of the most graphic images were gathered in a short video made by Ukraine to accompany President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech at the United Nations on Tuesday. In a soundtrack with gloomy music and children crying, the video showed close-ups of corpses and body parts. The technical difficulties delayed its broadcast until long after Zelenskyy’s discussion, giving time to networks such as CNN and Fox News Channel that had broadcast the speech to present it later in an edited form. But MSNBC seemed to show it completely, leaving presenter Andrea Mitchell visibly upset. “This is just awful,” he said. “I do not think people have seen anything like this.” Ukraine has a clear motive to show the world what is happening, and journalists accompanied Zelensky on a visit to Bucha on Monday. While television and the Internet provide more direct coverage of war, shocking images — and their ability to shape public opinion — are far from new. Harvard historian Drew Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, noted that when Matthew Brady had an exhibition of photographs from the 1862 Civil War, the New York Times wrote, ” “If he has not brought corpses and left them in our yards and on the streets, he has done something similar.” When a memorable photo was released of a 5-year-old boy sitting dizzy and covered in blood after being rescued from a bombing in Aleppo, Syria in 2016, NPR asked in a headline: “Can a photo help end a war?” He has not yet. One danger, too, is that in a world that is not easily shocked, people will numb in the photos. This is Faust’s fear, especially as she expressed her surprise that so many people were strangely disconnected from the news of so many people dying from COVID-19. As more communities are liberated from Russian rule, the number of horrific images will almost certainly increase. “It will take some time in the future for any news program to avoid a parade of horrific images,” said Bill Wheatley, a news consultant and retired NBC News executive. However, one of the surprises of this war, along with Ukraine’s ability to prevent a quick defeat, is the way Zelenskyy managed to win the information battle and unite the opposition in an unexpected way. In this context, images can help make a difference.
Associated Press correspondent Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy. Louise Dixon in London. Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland. and Amanda Seitz in Washington, DC, contributed to this report.
