Looking at the Indo today, there is an article about sexual exploitation and an image is used and credited to AXEL SCHMIDT of AXEL SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images. A quick search shows Aexl to be photo journalist based in Berlin, Germany.
So why title the image as "A Ukrainian prostitute" in an article about the trafficking of women in Ireland without noting that the image is not of a Ukrainian prostitute in Ireland but one who is in fact somewhere else. In Germany perhaps where prostitution is legal or maybe she was in the Ukraine where there would be no trafficking aspect at all. There is a serious issue about sexual exploitation to be talked about here but that doesn't appear to stop the Indo from getting in a shot of a woman in a see through slip. Is this what happens at an Eds meeting, "hmm article about foreign prostitution? Any chance we can work a sexy pic into this?"
The sad part is that's exactly what happens. And unfortunately, I think that those conversations are not confined to the Indo's offices.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, how many images used during the coverage of Katy French's death involved the girl wearing a bikini or something similarly revealing?
Or the teen that went missing out in Portugal (or was it Spain) - how many of the images used in the coverage of that case involved the girl wearing a costume that wasn't exactly conservative?
The general rule is that any excuse for printing a picture of an attractive girl should be exploited and the more flesh the better - so long as you can't see nipples.
Niall, I didn't see the coverage of the girl (I think she was from Dublin originally?) in Spain in the press so much. I mainly saw that on the telly. If that case was covered it throws up the other problem the press has which is in the sexualisation of teens, that girl was about 15/16? I think. And the press run scare stories about child abuse and those taking advantage of teenagers then with the same ink print pictures of another teenager only a few weeks old to titillate their readers. It's hard enough for teenagers to navigate their way through those years safely without the press that they see their parents reading sending out mixed messages.
ReplyDeleteI found this very interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.escort-ireland.com/tv3/