On Tuesday, January 15 at approximately 3 p.m., explosives and gunfire shattered the usual tranquility of the DusitD2, a leafy, upscale hotel and office complex in Nairobi, Kenya.
At the time of publication, the Kenyan government has not released official figures of the dead and wounded. Some media outlets report that at least 15 people have been killed and an unknown number of civilians injured. The Somalia-based terrorist group al-Shabaab has taken responsibility for the attacks.
Within minutes of the initial explosion, photos and videos started appearing on Twitter and other social media platforms — including billowing smoke from the Dusit and survivors running for safety. Since Nairobi is a hub for international media outlets, within a couple of hours, foreign media outlets began publishing their stories for international audiences.
Amidst the hundreds of images published yesterday, one stopped many Kenyans in their tracks. In The New York Times’ initial story about the event, penned by recently appointed East Africa bureau chief Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, the photo editors decided to include an image (from the wire Associated Press) that has since spurred not one but two trending hashtags in Nairobi.
Taken at the popular Secret Garden Café tucked away in the compound, the grainy photograph depicts a scene of utter carnage. Two unidentified men’s lifeless bodies are slumped over on their tables, their laptops still next to them. It is a horrific reminder of the indiscriminate nature of terrorist attacks. (The following morning, the German news site “Bild” published an article that showed even more direct views of bodies.)
Since The New York Times’ story was published while the shooters were still active, the photo quickly came to represent the worst nightmare for someone whose loved one is still missing.
One of the many Kenyans who took to Twitter was Mark Kaigwa, the founder of Nendo, a digital business consultancy agency based in Nairobi — in fact, at a building adjacent to the Dusit.
“Seeing the photo was really jarring because of the close-up nature of the photo,” Kaigwa says. “The Secret Garden is an intimate space so the photographer must’ve been very close to the dead and that photographer probably violated [barriers] to get that vantage point.” What made the situation even worse for Kaigwa is that when he came across the photo, a member of his team was still stuck inside the office.
What particularly angered Kaigwa — and many others — is how de Freytas-Tamura responded to the controversy: she reminded her critics that as the reporter, she did not choose the photo, and that people could take their concerns up directly with the photo department. She was factually correct, but to many Kenyans, she displayed an unnerving callousness.
“I think what that tweet showed to people is that they didn’t have someone who listen to them and empathize with them,” says Kaigwa. The reporter later deleted the tweet and instead shared The New York Times’ official policy on showing casualties during terrorist attacks.
Some began calling for the government to revoke de Freytas-Tamura’s work permit in Kenya. Others called for her to be expelled from the country.
For others, the deportation pleas were a step too far (not for the least because she did not make the photo choice).
“I’m thinking [about] how we consume images of black suffering and brown suffering and how we tell those stories,” says Nanjala Nyabola, a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi. “I don’t fault people for calling out The New York Times.”
However, she is disturbed that people are “calling for international journalists to be deported and are calling for the state to intervene. Hang on a second. Why do you want to give the state that power? Today it’s someone that you disagree with and then what?”
TThe visceral reaction to the photo came from genuine anguish of a nation in shock. But it was also a reaction to a long history of how brown and black bodies have historically been depicted in Western media: easily disposable and lacking in humanity.
For its part, The New York Times official statement says, “We take the same approach wherever in the world something like this happens — balancing the need for sensitivity and respect with our mission of showing the reality of these events.”
But many Kenyans are not buying this justification. A Twitter user called Olé shared links to previous articles in The New York Times during the aftermaths of terrorist attacks in Paris, London, and other European cities, none of which included dead bodies.
The Times itself has explored this ethical quandary. In August 2018, The New York Times Magazine published an essay titled, “When We See Photographs of Some Dead Bodies and Not Others,” in which author Sarah Sentilles paraphrases the late American writer and philosopher Susan Sontag: “Showing only photographs of violence that happens abroad generates separation between subjects and viewers. These images imply that tragedy is inevitable and unavoidable — and therefore more acceptable — when it is experienced by faraway people; they create the sense that violence is something that happens elsewhere and to others.”
On a personal note, thinking purely as an editor, I could see news value of the photo in question. It’s visceral, disturbing, and heartbreaking. It gives the viewer a sense of being in the room where the horror of yesterday’s attack happened (BRIGHT Magazine’s offices are just a few kilometers away). However, I don’t think I would have run the photo while the attack was still ongoing.
BRIGHT’s visuals editor, Marion Durand, agrees. “As a photo editor, I don’t think we can shy away from images of dead bodies,” she says. “It’s not the answer. You have to show what’s happening. But then there’s the question of timing. You don’t want people to learn of their loved ones being dead via press.”
Yesterday’s attack was a tragedy for Kenya, especially those who lost loved ones. It was also a teachable moment for journalists, and especially editors, who have to make snap decision in the midst of tragic breaking news. How much bloodshed do we show? Do we cover deadly events taking place a world away the same way that we would cover events in our own communities?
I was also struck that the Twitter conversation was unfolding while people were still losing their lives. As much as I yearn to have honest conversations about journalistic ethics, and especially how Western media covers the global south, was this the right time for this debate? Should it wait until the bodies are buried and the families have had a chance to process their loss?
“If not now, when?” asked Nyabola on the phone earlier today. “Because at least now we have their attention. In two days another story will break. In two days another part of Africa will come to their attention.”
What do you think? Should The New York Times have published the image? Was the criticism fair, or did it go too far? How do you ethically photograph a terrorist attack?
