THERE has been a long-standing debate over the use of graphic images in the media.

I believe it is the duty of the public to remain informed and it is of great concern that they are instead becoming offended.

The job of the press is to inform, not ponder to your feelings, they are not obliged to water-down the news if it is dark and graphic, including sharing imagery that may be disturbing.

The Echo’s recent report on a sheep being mauled by a dog contained the photo of the bloodied sheep, which serves as testament to good, honest reporting - in the grand debate of what is ‘too far’ for imagery of this nature, I argue that the keyword is ‘respect.’

In the case of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash, images of the deceased, tragically, spread like a wildfire and corrupted the headlines of the national press – a cruel, undignified incursion that violates the dignities of those lost and their families.

In the prime of postmodern thought, the fact that certain papers felt the necessity to take such desperate measures to shock the public disappoints me.

It is one thing to report honestly with the facts and the imagery necessary – it is another to use said imagery for shock, or to pervert the story to ones’ own ideology.

The press hold the authority to control the release of information, however with such great power comes great responsibility – responsibility which is being abused by certain national newspapers.

Sadly we are becoming more and more conditioned to shock value and more apathetic to the stories behind it.

I do not stand alone in asking if the grand question really is if these images should be used or not.

Instead, we should be asking ourselves not if, but what, why and how.

What is truly happening, why is it happening and how can we tackle the issues expressed in whatever the article may be?

As aforementioned, we are becoming apathetic and docile to the world around us and the use of shock value for the sake of shock value will only work for so long.

What was shocking ten years ago isn’t now, and what is now, won’t be in ten years.

But how far the rabbit hole can we afford to go?

By Oliver Streather-Paul