Photojournalism in the UK

According to Ian Buchanan there have been several occasions this Century when it has been deemed expedient to be somewhat economical with the truth-especially during war time.

Now You See It...

Censorship of photojournalism in the UK during the 20th Century has been predominantly benign rather than malicious; driven by honest intentions to preserve national security or morale and not as a means of deception to undermine the rule of democracy. The majority of us are content most of the time that we live in a relatively free society, with a press that is largely unfettered by government.

If society is to function at all, its members have to be prepared to accept restrictions on their liberty imposed by law. And the law is respected when it is approved by the majority, is perceived to be fair and seen to be even-handedly applied.

Even though parliament strives to frame the law so as to ensure the greatest good of the greatest number, there are times when close adherence to the letter encroaches upon personal liberty, but there are also occasions when a liberal interpretation preserves freedom. For example the law specifically prohibits photography in the precincts of a court, which is a criminal offence we see committed almost daily in the newspapers and on television in reports on cases of interest to the public.

One of the ways in which existing law can be used to hinder photography is through the Highways Act 1959, which forbids anyone to wilfully and without lawful authority obstruct free passage along a highway. Police officers also have powers of arrest if they are obstructed in the execution of their duty, suspect someone of threatening behaviour or of breaching the peace. Again, it's difficult to see as deliberate censorship the behaviour of an over-enthusiastic, perhaps officious or inexperienced police officer.

Often the problem is one of mutual misunderstanding in a confrontational situation: the photojournalist wants a news picture to keep the picture editor happy and the police officer wants to ensure that the situation is under control so that the rescue services can work unhindered. To the photojournalist faced with an intransigent law enforcer it can certainly feel like censorship.

The very act of photographing is also consciously or unconsciously one of censorship in which the photographer chooses the viewpoint and what to include or exclude, and the choice made can warp the truth, particularly if used in conjunction with an inaccurate or deliberately misleading caption. Similarly, the use of lighting, exposure, development and printing skills can emphasise or repress elements of a picture to create a desired impression or effect, although these effects are generally too subtle to amount to a level of censorship that would restrict the liberty of others.


Oppressive Regime

After all, censorship should ultimately be measured by the degree to which it restricts the freedom, or endangers the existence of others. When Stalin's censors excised his eliminated opponents from photographs, the aim was to sustain his oppressive regime by distorting history and suppressing the truth so that Soviet citizens would remain enslaved in mind and body. Just imagine if Photoshop had been around in Stalin's
day - with today's technology people can be erased from a photograph at the click of
a mouse.

In the UK, censorship has been an officially enforced policy only in times of armed conflict. During the First World War British soldiers were forbidden to carry cameras from the beginning, but this was not rigorously enforced in the early years of the campaign. Hilary Roberts, head of collections management at the Imperial War Museum's photograph archive says: 'In World War I the controls over photography evolved considerably. In 1914 there were no formal arrangements beyond a general ban on photography and there were no service photographers.

Private soldiers were forbidden to take photographs, but this was generally not enforced on the Western Front until a change of policy at the end of 1915. Then personal cameras had to be sent home and the ban was enforced. You can see this from the soldiers' albums. Before 1915 there are a lot of personal snapshots; then from early 1916 what you see is copies of officially-produced photographs.

'In 1916 official photographers were appointed. The first was Ernest Brookes and he, along with John Warwick-Brooke, were the two photographers responsible for the bulk of British pictures of the Western Front.'

The output of the official photographers was censored in the field, but the main restriction was in the ease of access to events on the front line. 'This wasn't necessarily anything to do with official obstruction, because management of their activities was something of a mishmash. Their primary responsibility was to take photographs in support of the war effort and recording events for posterity was an afterthought,' says Roberts.

'The photographers were pretty independent, subject to the demands for good publishable pictures from home. Their main hindrance was the physical problem of access and reaching difficult areas of the front with cumbersome cameras and processing equipment. Because of this they often teamed up with film cameramen to share the available transport. Our archives show evidence of this with film footage and still photographs depicting the same scenes.'

Photographers were commissioned into the army with the rank of Lieutenant and were subject to the field commanders having their say in what could be covered. This varied from section to section depending upon the attitude of the particular officers in command.

First Photojournalist
Although he wouldn't have described himself as such, Roger Fenton, working 60 years before the outbreak of WWI, was the first photojournalist. The majority of his work in the Crimea was in taking portraits of the officers. He benefited from a cosy relationship with them and wrote of enjoying a 'Swell dinner' with the nobility. The technical limitations of the medium at that time - he landed at Balaclava in March 1855 - precluded the possibility of anything but posed photographs taken away from, or after the action. These factors plus the logistical difficulties of access, the lack of interest in photography as a means of propaganda, or the existence of channels to exploit it as such, allowed him complete freedom.

This didn't stop him from freely reporting on the conditions he witnessed in his letters and photographing Balaclava Harbour, described as a 'cesspool filled with putrefying sheep's entrails, dead horses and beef bones.' Those pictures hint at the serious deficiencies in the conduct of the war reported in The Times by journalist William Howard Russell.

In the Second World War, John Chilling-worth, who started working in the Picture Post darkrooms before later making his name as a photographer on the magazine, remembers making half a dozen 6X4in prints of every image chosen for publication. 'When I was a kid it was my job to make the prints and take them along to the Ministry of Information where Harry Deverson, who later became picture editor at The Sunday Times, sat on a dais as chief censor. Censorship during the war was something else, everything had to be approved. At that time the system was accepted as a necessity and not something to be bitter about.'

Censorship was a factor of both world wars, but particularly in those theatres where the conflict was fast moving, it was mostly applied ineffectively.

Hilary Roberts says: 'At the outset, there was an underestimate of the potential of photography in the First World War as a tool for publicity. In the Second World War both Montgomery and Churchill were aware of its power and worked with photographers.'

In World War II, the Ministry of Information encouraged magazines like Picture Post to run photo essays that supported the war effort. The aim was not to shock, but the liberation of the concentration camps changed that.

George Rodger was among the first to enter the camps and later told his Magnum colleague Robert Capa of the revulsion he felt with himself when he realised he was taking pictures and going through the process of composing them; he realised he was organising horror and could not hide behind the camera.

Robert Capa also had an experience that gave him an insight into the burden of responsibility carried by the photojournalist. Bryn Campbell, photographer and former Observer picture editor recalls a story about Capa who went to an airfield to photograph bombers returning from a raid. He approached a badly shot up Flying Fortress to see the door open and what was left of a crewman, barely alive and moaning, carried out of the aeroplane, followed by other badly wounded members of the crew. 'The last man to leave was the pilot, who was only slightly injured. I moved in to take a picture and he said: "Are these the pictures you were waiting for photographer?" I closed my camera and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

As I travelled back I hated myself and my profession. This sort of photography was only for undertakers and I didn't like being one. If I was to share the funeral, I swore I would have to share the procession.'

Campbell says: 'Human values are more important than aesthetics, if you go the other way, where does it take you? The best kind of photojournalism relates to everyone involved. The best kind of censorship is to put your camera down and help.'

Korean War
The Korean War also brought out the censors not by the Government this time , but by the proprietor of the century's most lauded photojournalistic magazine, Sir Edward Hulton. This arose when Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy and journalist James Cameron produced a story about the maltreatment of political prisoners by South Korean soldiers, apparently with the tacit approval of the local United Nations office.

Editor Tom Hopkinson put the story in the magazine, but Hulton stepped in. He personally ordered the printing presses to be stopped and the magazine made up again without it. Hopkinson reinstated the article in the following week's issue and was sacked by Hulton for refusing to comply with his request. There are rumours that Hulton was believed to be in line for a knighthood and felt that running the story could jeopardise his chances.

The most influential post-1945 conflict was Vietnam, which was remarkable for its complete lack of control. Still photographers and film cameramen had complete freedom to cover anything they wished and they did so aided and abetted by the military. Stories abound of photojournalists hailing military helicopters like taxis. Exposed film was quickly fed back to the States through both military and civil channels without any checks. The lesson the American establishment learned was how uncontrolled access to news could undermine the war effort.

Images of the conflict shown nightly on television and across the published media led to civil demonstrations against American presence in Vietnam. The political climate turned heavily against the war and forced withdrawal from the conflict.

That lesson was learned by governments and censorship was stringently enforced during the Falklands War by restricting access and the means of communication. This was easy to achieve on a remote island in the south Atlantic, when the only channels of communication belonged to the military.

During the Gulf War censorship was again imposed by restricting access through the establishment of a pool system. The pool was set up between the Newspaper publishers' Association and the Ministry of Defence in consultation with the Saudi Arabian government. Under the arrangement, the MoD agreed to issue 35 letters of approval, with one for each of the national papers who were NPA members and 13 to be allocated by ballot.

In one of those peculiar twists that reveal how much importance is placed on photojournalism by national paper managers, only five British photographers received accreditation to join the media response teams (MRTs). The Daily Mirror, The Sun and Today elected respectively to send Kenny Lennox, Phil Hannaford and Mike Moore. The Press Association sent David Giles and Reuters, Jonathan Bainbridge.

Once they overcame those hurdles, they were then confronted by the dead hand of MoD minders, whose first response to any requests for picture opportunities was to refuse, even ordering RAF ground personnel to cover their faces when photographers were around. The necessity of keeping the identities of aircrew members secret was well understood and accepted by photographers. Soon after the war, Mike Moore said: 'The public information people, who were detailed to look after us, never quite realised the importance of what they were doing. They rather saw it as their being given a bum assignment; detailed to look after a bunch of journalists.'

Some photographers working independently managed through their ingenuity to circumvent these restrictions, particularly when Operation Desert Storm got underway.

Gulf War
At the time of the Gulf War, electronic communication technology was coming of age. It meant that for the first time free-roving photojournalists working in the field could be provided with semi-portable equipment that allowed them to transmit images from the Middle East via two satellites, straight to UK newspapers. Those images were received at the Goonhilly ground station and very likely passed into the telecommunications system via GCHQ in Cheltenham. The plug could easily have been pulled on them at any time, but, encouragingly, wasn't. The technology was expensive, but affordable by the major news media companies.

Under 10 years later, the technology is very different. Now a digital camera plugged into a portable computer, connected to a mobile telephone can speed images from most areas of the inhabited world. The images can be transmitted by the mobile telephone network, or by the ubiquitous Internet. Such equipment is now within the buying power of individuals with the implication that the task facing any aspiring censor is becoming insurmountable through the sheer quantity of data transmitted.

The main danger of censorship in the future, as in the past, is likely to come from those who own, or fund the media seeking to protect their own interests.

In a healthy society, the boundaries of restraint on photojournalism are arbitrated by prevailing tastes and values. Kenneth Jarecke's horrific picture showing the charred body of an Iraqi soldier killed on the retreat to Basra towards the end of the Gulf War, was rejected by most UK picture editors, but published in The Observer. Picture editor Tony McGrath defended its use in the BJP 14 March 1991, because it conveyed the idea that: '...war is disgusting, humiliating and degrading, and diminishes everybody.'

His decision to run the picture was taken after a 'fierce debate' among editorial staff. Right or wrong, that's surely the way such decisions should be made, by rational debate and consideration of the alternatives. Too often the press has carried images that diminish without any soul-searching at all. The publication of a picture of Princess Diana taken surreptitiously - not by a professional - with a camera hidden above an exercise machine in a private sports centre was a memorable low point.

Treatment of photographers covering the Paddington train crash last October caused a lot of bitterness among photographers and picture editors. The police at and around the scene stopped them from taking photographs seemingly without reason and certainly without authority.

What most offended was the police implying that the photographers wanted to take pictures insensitively, which would offend or upset victims' families. It was an attack on both their integrity and their professionalism.

Campbell comments: 'I know that censorship has been imposed on photographers without legal authority. On the other hand you must look at the history of relationships between the police and the press. Photographers and police usually meet in confrontational situations and photographers have in the past been responsible for transgressions of courtesy or sensitivity they later regretted. One can never come out with a black-and-white definition of what censorship should be and how it should be applied.'

It ought to be possible for a code of conduct to be drawn up to cover the conduct of both police and photojournalists in such situations. The problem is that there is no single body to represent photojournalism and no means of compelling its practitioners to join, or support such a body; that, after all, would really be censorship.

Now that technology has made it possible for anyone to take pictures at any time, anywhere on the planet and instantly distribute them to millions of people around the world via the World Wide Web, the ability of individuals, interest groups or governments to censor content has virtually disappeared. The danger is that the perverse misuse of the Internet through the dissemination of false information, whether for corrupt or mischievous reasons will devalue it as a means of communication and what should be the greatest hedge against censorship ever devised will be strangled by the abuse of its freedom.


 © Timothy Benn Publishing Ltd

Information provided by: http://www.bjphoto.co.uk