Unbearable

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Is There a Public ‘Right to Know’?

When do photojournalists and editors have the right — or the responsibility — to protect us from the news? 

“Our job, as photographers, as photo editors, is to see what we don’t want to see. We don’t take pleasure from it. These images are unbearable.”

—Lionel Charrier, director of photography, Libération, on the decision to run an AP image of the bodies of seven Syrian children killed in a sarin gas attack, on the French newspaper’s front page. “The Story Behind a Newspaper's Cover Photo of 7 Dead Syrian Children,” Time, April 6, 2017 

• Editorial Comment: Unless we’d prefer blissful ignorance?


PeezPix by Ted Pease

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