Pornography

As part of my brief journalism training, I was required to take a class in mass media ethics. We spent a week discussing pornography and the different interpretations of the word. I was reading the NYTimes today and saw this

..which immediately brought to mind my professor's accusation that pornography really isn't about nudity or sex, its about something that is unslightly and exploitative. It's about crossing the line between telling a story that needs to be told and sensationalizing a catastrophic event to emphasize the theatrics and entertainment value. It is, sadly, a line which is more often crossed in journalism than in porn.

I understand the need to tell this story, in fact, I find it an incredibly important story to tell. However, the photograph of someone shooting up in a ruined building on the front page of World section of the New York Times is shocking and sickening. Opening the article with a man crying over the 'youngest Afghan known to have H.I.V.' is disgusting. I won't even go on about the tragedy of the 'normal' person with H.I.V., the woman who was raped but can't go to a clinic for help because she will be killed for being 'promiscuous', or the hundreds of young men who just didn't know any better. All are equally as tragic--perhaps even more so--than this young boy. But they aren't as sensational, or sickening. This isn't news--its a ridiculous Hallmarkian piece of shit. It's not telling the real story; it's selling the newspaper.