Thursday, September 3, 2015

Newspapers Give Wake Up Call With Dead Toddler Photo

  1. Story image for new york times headline photo of drowned baby from Al-Arabiya
    Al-Arabiya

    Newspapers Give Wake Up Call With Dead Toddler Photo

    MediaPost Communications-8 hours ago
    The photos have to be heart wrenching for even the most jaded of readers, and for me, the first-time father of a 1-year-old baby girl, they were like a kick in the gut. ... his older brother Galip, both drowned along with their mother Rihan, ... (the New York Daily News' recent cover showing the on-air shooting in ...

    Newspapers Give Wake Up Call With Dead Toddler Photo

    Newspapers across Europe, the U.S., and around the world grabbed their readers by the shoulders and gave them a good shake this week.The photos have to be heart wrenching for even the most jaded of readers, and for me, the first-time father of a 1-year-old baby girl, they were like a kick in the gut. The tiny crumpled form of a toddler, face down in the surf on a Turkish beach where he had washed ashore after the boat he was in capsized. Then the Turkish policeman, mortified, cradling the body carefully (too late), looking away so he won’t have to see the boy’s face.
    The boy, a 3-year-old Kurdish refugee named Aylan, and his older brother Galip, both drowned along with their mother Rihan, while their father Abdullah survived. It’s the kind of tragic story that has echoed down the millennia in the Mediterranean Sea, that ancient grave of unlucky seafarers -- but this is 2015.
    So why is it still happening?
    While newspapers often come under fire for publishing shocking images, especially where mortality is involved (the New York Daily News’ recent cover showing the on-air shooting in Virginia comes to mind) this is one case where it is seemingly accepted without comment. Even the most squeamish readers must realize that they are supposed to be upset, that indeed that is the whole point.
    It’s fair to ask what it will achieve.
    With luck, in Europe, the intended destination of these unfortunates, it will galvanize a practical political response of the sort that has obviously been lacking over the last two years. There will be no easy solutions to the immigration crisis, nor will it simply be a matter of opening the continent’s doors to everyone.
    Not all the migrants qualify as asylum seekers, and even wealthy countries can only absorb so many indigent people, however desperate they may be. Yet clearly something has to change, and in democracies, the impetus must come from the people themselves.
    For Americans who see this image, the impact is admittedly a little more abstract, but no less real. It might make us reflect on the hundreds or even thousands of immigrants who have died trying to cross the border from Mexico, doubtless including little children whose families are also fleeing violence.
    Given its highly political aspect, many will reject that comparison, but the image can still serve a purpose for them, as for anyone else who sees it and feels some kinship with humanity -- simply bearing witness.
    September 4, 2015
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    Newspapers Give Wake Up Call With Dead Toddler Photo

     
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    How the media covered Aylan’s grim and iconic photograph

    Headlines that accompanied the already iconic picture focused on the harsh reality behind Europe’s migrant crisis.
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    By Salma El Shahed | Al Arabiya News
    Thursday, 3 September 2015
    The harrowing photograph of the lifeless body of Aylan, dressed in a red T-shirt and blue shorts, has sparked an outrage at what the United Nations has repeatedly called the “greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.”
    While national newspapers in the UK opted for an image of a Turkish gendarmerie soldier carrying Ayaln’s small body, The Independent opted for the hard-hitting close-up of the young refugee’s body lying face down in the sand, the sea lapping up around his body.
    Abir Najjar, a professor of media studies at the American University, said this image is powerful because of what it represents.
    “It’s symbolic because it represents how the whole world is turning its back to humanitarian suffering during the four-year-long war in Syria,” she told Al Arabiya News.
    But Aylan is not the first child to wash up on a shore after attempting to get to Europe, nor is this the first picture. So why has this photograph sparked the reaction it did?
    In this Tuesday, Sept 1. 2015, photo, the body of a child, who washed up along with others, is seen in Zuwara, Libya (65 miles west of Tripoli) after two smuggling boats sank off the coast of Libya last Thursday. (AP)

    “Somehow relatively, as a war image, this picture is clean,” Najjar said.
    “There is no blood…the child could be sleeping, it’s next to the sea, so all the elements of distressing and disturbing pictures are not existent within this, at least from a very superficial point of view,” she explained.
    The picture was heavily shared on social media, a quick search of the #Syria hashtag on the photo-sharing app will show a steam of images of Aylan.
    “There was some verification to the symbolic significance of the picture itself based on the response on social media. So somehow it is reinforcing what is already there,” Najjar said.
    “Like with all iconic pictures,” she added, referencing the pictures of Palestinian Mohammad Al Durra and the south Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture.
    So will these picture spark any change?
    “This picture, and similar stories, but particularly this picture helps change the conversation and brings us back to the bottom line that these are not immigrants who are looking for welfare, these are refugees who are trying to take refuge elsewhere and they are seeking safety from the horrors that they face at home,” Najjar explained.

    The photograph has gone viral across social media and news outlets, and in most cases apparently rarely obscured.
    A young migrant, who drowned in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos, lies on the shore in the Turkish coastal town of Bodrum, Turkey, September 2, 2015. (Reuters)
    Headlines that accompanied the already iconic picture focused on the harsh reality behind Europe’s migrant crisis.
    In recent months thousands have died trying to cross into the European Union. Many of those who drowned in the Mediterranean were Syrian refugees escaping the ongoing war. Aylan’s family had been repeatedly displaced by the fighting in Syria, a local journalist told AFP on Thursday.
    “The shocking, cruel reality of Europe’s refugee crisis,” the Guardian’s front page read above a photograph of the Turkish soldier carrying Ayaln.
    The Sun juxtaposed an image of a baby born to refugee parents in a Hungarian train station next to Ayaln’s picture with a headline reading: “It’s Life & death.”
    “The Sun says: Mr Cameron, summer is over…now deal with the biggest crisis facing Europe since WW2,” a caption underneath read.
    The Daily Mail, which was criticized in May for publishing an article on “boat people” that focused on the discomfort of holidaymakers vacationing in the Greek island of Kos, ran the headline: “Tiny victim of a human catastrophe.”
    “Drowned Syrian toddler embodies heartbreak of migrant crisis,” was the headline of choice by the Los Angeles Times.
    The Washington Post’s headline included Aylan’s name: “Aylan’s story: How desperation left a 3-year-old boy washed up on a Turkish beach.”

    Last Update: Friday, 4 September 2015 KSA 23:15 - GMT 20:15

    TOPICS

    AYLAN KURDI AYLAN SYRIA SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS REFUGEE CRISIS SYRIA

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