It’s a compelling tale of how a Canon MKII digital camera, a sat phone, a laptop and an eye for a story can be used as effectively as pages of description in print and radio and TV coverage to powerfully convey the savagery of the natural disaster.
But it also raises the eternal ethical question: should Barria have put down his camera and helped those in immediate need of assistance, rather than “profiting” from their plight.
It’s an issue I once faced: displaced Shi’ites in southern Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli Hezbollah war wanted the world to hear their story. The soil ran black as bodies rotted in hurriedly due mass graves, yet relatives wanted to talk, they wanted to world to listen. So I wrote their stories.
I’m not sure what I would have done in Haiti, but Barria’s pictures allowed the world to see the destruction first hand, to capture the emotion of Haitians as they dug with their bare hands to try to reach loved ones trapped in the rubble. TF
The area of ethics is no doubt a tricky and grey one. I think however it's important for others to see the true devasation faced by the victims of natural disasters. Also in cases where the aftermath is not being delt with effectively,as naive as I may sound, I think the media is a crucial way for the affected people to be heard and those problems to be raised.Obviously not everyone who offers to tell their stories does so for this reason but I think this type is coverage it vital to people really seeing what's going on in areas such as Haiti.
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