A Soldiers Death - The Controversy

A 21-year-old marine was killed in Afghanistan. This story is a very sad story. His company had two reporters with them at the time. When they were under fire everyone was notified that there was a casualty. The reporter was laying down trying to stay out of the fire taking pictures of what she could see. She was with the company to learn and report about the war. She was doing her job perfectly until she crossed the line of posting the photographs of the injured marine in the national newspapers and on the internet. The line that she crossed wasn't just considered too far by the American people, it was considered too far by the family. The family had strictly asked her not to publish those pictures of their son in that time of great pain.

The reporter mainly crossed the code of ethics. At the point when the family asked her not to publish the picture she should have automatically refrained from posting it. But, even as a journalist, she broke one of the main standards. Number four on the NPPA Code of Ethics, journalist's standards, "Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see." This journalist didn't treat this tragedy with respect, dignity, didn't give special compassion to this tragedy. Instead she was very disrespectful to both the family and the deceased soldier. She also didn't give this situation any compassion, she didn't think about it as if it were her own family. Finally, she didn't need to post this specific image to the public. The public was not begging for this picture to be publicized. She could have reported this story to the public with a different picture. She could have used the picture from the memorial service that most of the other newspapers used. I think that all the journalists involved with posting this story could have used better choices and thought more about their personal code of ethics to make the final decision of publicizing this image.