On January 19th, 2010, photojournalist Paul Hansen took a photograph of a fifteen- year-old girl named Fabienne Cherisma, who’d been shot dead by police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In March of the following year, Hanen’s picture was chosen as the Best International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year Awards, an award that would ignite a long-standing debate over the ethics of photographing disasters. No stranger to controversy, Hansen has a history of award-winning photography that pushes boundaries, a practice that has been prevalent throughout photojournalism since its earliest uses. His images often depict moments of tragedy and suffering seen in areas steeped in conflict or the throes of a disaster. They offer compelling views into the events that shape the lives of people that we’d otherwise have little or no access to witnessing. There are instances where these photographs cross an ethical boundary. Instances in which it becomes unclear whether they should tell the story. Sometimes described as disaster pornography, these photographs depict brutal moments of human suffering. Often with a level of objectivity that may seem callous or exploitative. These moments prompt the question: is this necessary to tell the story? Hansen offers a startling glimpse into the ongoing …show more content…
It is the ambiguity of this definition that are the source of debate for how these principles apply to photojournalism. Even within the existing infrastructure, there is room for interpretation that depends on vetting through various philosophical schools of thought and industry standards about ethical practice. The most prominent source of ethical standards is presented by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), in their Code of Ethics. The preamble to the ethics code