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Coverage of Terrorism
I like this picture very much. This was taken outside of Yankee
Stadium the day of the big memorial for the families of the
victims.
The first Sunday after the attacks I got in my car and drove to
Harlem. I was driving on about 128th street at about 9:30 in
the morning and suddenly I heard this beautiful rendition of
“God Bless America.” I stopped the car and saw this all-black
procession following a preacher with an American flag, walking
out of this small brick church. I followed them as they sang
the song at least 10 times as they walked until they got to an
outdoor basketball court where they made a circle and for an
hour said prayers and speeches and sang for the victims of the
World Trade Center. I was the only journalist there, but I
wish national television had been there that morning to show
these people feeling the way they did about this incident and
their city.
you want to honor them, that you’re
not taking something away. If you avoid
their glance, of course they will be
angry. I think it’s a wonderful dynamic
because that lack of objectivity means
that it’s all about that sort of sense of
interrelationship with people. So a lot
of people are surprised that people all
over the world, in situations of suffering,
want other people to know and to
feel and to think about their suffering.
They want people to take heed of it.
They want them to consider it. And,
very often, they’re in fact honored by
the presence of a camera, if it’s wielded
in the right way. In New York, I didn’t
encounter any hostility.
Turnley, in responding to a question
about whether there are moments
when he is taking photographs that he
feels he could be doing something to
help people, rather than taking their
pictures, talks about the value of the
work he does.
I’m fascinated by the human experience,
and I don’t feel a sense of guilt
about that. I hope that the reason I do
what I do is not so I can go home and
look at these pictures in a closet and
get some sort of kick out of it. It’s to
communicate with you, so that we can
think of this as a collective experience,
that this doesn’t just stay there. That
events in your country or something
that might have happened to someone
in your family, if it had a dimension
beyond only the private matters of your
family that other people could contemplate
and maybe it could help them
take their lives further. I’ve very frequently
picked up victims and gotten
them to a hospital in difficult war zones.
If I have the option of whether I knew
I could help someone or make a picture,
I can’t imagine that I would not
choose to help them.
At the World Trade Center, there
were other people who were much
better prepared than I was to rescue
these victims. I felt that what I could
best do with my energy was, in fact, pay
tribute to the men and women who got
out in those difficult conditions and
made those gestures of help. The reason
I would justify that cameramen
and photographers and journalists be
present in these situations is not because
they’re making money or because
they’re parasites—it’s because
50 years from now, it’s important that
people contemplate the decency that
so many people demonstrated in trying
to do the right thing in a situation
that was difficult. I don’t know how
that can be communicated without
images, without words, without film. ■
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 9