Thanks to those of you who have pointed out that
@AP 's Photos of Infiltration and Tragedy in Israel were shamefully awarded a Pictures of the Year (POY) Award by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
@RJI at the Missouri School of Journalism.
I am happy to correct my earlier post.
Like many of you, I hoped this was a creepy and sinister joke. Sadly it wasn’t.
It is hard to know who is more repellent -
@AP for using the product of a ghoul who rode with terrorists and rapists as they slaughtered women and children and then stopped to pose and snap this vision of heartless, diabolic triumph: the killers and abusers of an innocent girl of 22 pose with her naked broken body as a trophy. Or the Missouri School of Journalism that is rewarding that repulsive conduct. It suggests that both organizations have deep fissures of emptiness where their morality, humanity and indeed taste should be.
Even if you are one of those amoral people who regard the Oct7 killraid with its rapine and butchery as a 'military operation', this picture does not show a military operation: for that you could have chosen Hamas fighters on captured Israeli tanks.
Instead
@AP @rji @mujschool are celebrating the posing of a picture snapped between the capture, rape and killing and gleeful parading of the naked body of an innocent girl in the middle of a process of unspeakable mutilation and mockery, the very photographing itself an act of indefensible abuse and atrocious inhumanity. Not to speak of an appalling corruption of the ethics of journalism.
How would we feel if a photographer drove around with a serial killer and took snaps of him in action? Would you give him a prize for great journalism or for depravity? @mujschool@Mizzou and
@Kurp Dean Professor Kurpius
@RJI ?
I make a point of this because from Oct7 onwards, there has been a campaign to deny and dehumanize the victims of Hamas butchery. This plays into that. Though it does expose and prove Hamas rapine and murder in all its brazen wickedness, it also treats the body of a young woman as a prop and a trophy and rewards collusion with the tormenters of her in life – and, horror of horrors, after her death. That’s the problem.
What say our humanitarians of the enlightened media? Between your organizations
@AP @mujschool you have pulled off quite a feat: the moral nadir of very flawed media coverage of this war and its horrors and tragedies committed and suffered by both sides.
An ethical news organization would not accept such a disgraceful award. Hopefully
@AP will now have enough decency left to refuse it. & hopefully
@mujschool @Mizzou @RJI and Dean Professor Kurpius
@Kurp the Missouri School of Journalism and Missouri University, who are giving a literally and metaphorically atrocious lesson on scavenging and carnage to its students in the giving of this award, have the leadership and morals to rescind it or even remove this photograph from it. Is this really the journalist and journalism that your founder would have revered
@RJI?
It is a terrible look for a news organization and a foundation. And worse for a place of learning.
And it is not too late.
Outrage as photo of Hamas parading victim's naked and mutilated body wins award
mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/ou…