Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmitillahi wa Barakatuh,

Recently, Br. Belal sent me a request to be a contributor to the Leechon Films blog. You may have seen the “Press” section of the blog which contains some of my work for the upcoming documentary “Tufaan.” Since I was already considering creating my own blog for just this purpose, I agreed. But as a disclaimer I never claim to be an expert and so I would encourage you all to take what I say with a grain of salt.

To introduce myself: I’m a Mass Comm Student concentrating in Public Relations. I’ll be doing a lot of the media work for Leechon Films and more specifically, “Tufaan.”Insha’Allah we have big plans for the documentary, and bi’fadhlillahi ta3ala it will be a changing point for Islamic media in the West. I’ll be blogging about various media topics including: how to pitch your stories and projects to reporters. And how we have the ability-and yet most don’t realize it- to change the image of Islam at our fingertips.

I want to dedicate the rest of my first post to a topic I thought was very interesting while taking a Visual Communication class. We talked a lot about ethics in media. However, this concentrated primarily on photography.

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I remember in 2004 hearing a news report in which a photographer described her experience in Iraq. She said one of the hardest things for her to do was to take pictures of grieving widowers- Putting a camera in their faces while they just found out their husbands have been killed.

Seeing this picture made me think how this aspect of ethics (photographing people’s personal tragedies) is virtually non-existent in our curriculum.Why? because they consider it an aspect of taste. ETHICS VS TASTE. They teach:

Ethics: Issues of deception or lying

Taste: Blood, sex, violence, etc

We as Muslims need to look beyond what our curriculum teaches us and more deeply into what is truly ethical and not ethical when it comes to our Islamic values.

I agree, sometimes we need to take pictures of people in distress to show the world that they need help and to show their conditions. Societal issues sometimes will outweigh personal tragedy.

They say that publishing gory photos is ethical only if you have a compelling reason and if it is a fair and actual representation of the situation.

This picture of a girl on the verge of dying from malnutrition and hunger while a vulture hovers over her, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. It was taken by photographer Kevin Carter:

There is a documentary about him HBO did which also highlighted the ethical standpoint of taking this photo:

“The photo became instantly famous after it appeared on the front page of the New York Times, while Carter himself became notorious. He embodied a classic dilemma facing journalists: whether to be witness to, or savior of, the subjects they depict.

Many critics asked why Carter didn’t “take off his photographer’s hat” and rescue the child from a dangerous situation. Haunted by all that he had seen - as well as the decisions he made both as a photojournalist and a human being - Carter committed suicide a few weeks after receiving the Pulitzer Prize. .”

WAllahul Musta’an.

Umm Ayoub

     

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