How Much Reality is Too Much?

In the wake of explicit footage showing atrocities committed by ISIS/The Islamic State, I have been pondering the question: how much reality ought news media broadcast?

Mainstream TV channels seldom, if ever, show individual deaths or extreme personal violence in news reports, even though distant explosions from deadly air-strikes are deemed to be acceptable for broadcasting.  The same channels will also sometimes air extremely graphic images late at night in news-based documentaries. The rationale appears to be that most adults find viewing extreme violence objectionable or harmful and ought not to be exposed to it; those who do not have such objections can search it out either in ‘special’ programmes or on the internet.

There are many concerns involved in broadcasting graphic violence: respect for victims and their families, fear of glorifying violence or desensitising people to it, distaste of giving publicity to violent groups or encouraging voyeurism; none of which ought to be readily dismissed.

At the same time, I have a nagging worry that those of us who live in ‘the West’ are too easily shielded from the harsh realities of life and death that millions of people face every day; we know little of the direct consequences of war and inter-communal conflict. We have had our share of war and barbarism in the past, of course, but for the greater part our current exposure to violence comes from films and TV dramas. Paradoxically, the more graphic the violence is in these media, the less realistic it is likely to be.

One of the most shocking things about real violence is its banality: people are not flung back by the impact of bullets; most often they just slump to the ground, their lives over. People do not often go nobly and defiantly to their deaths at the hands of their executioners; the reality is so much more genuinely pathetic than that.

There are some acts that are so vile that to view them can only be damaging and I accept that identifying such a threshold is, to some extent, a matter for every individual. Nevertheless, wherever we set the threshold, to try to hide from the reality of conflict and war or to shield ourselves from it is a luxury that I think we ought not to afford ourselves.

This does not mean that we ought to chase down every graphic image; it does suggest, however, that we ought to expose ourselves to enough of the reality of violence to enable us to EXPERIENCE its horror. That way, we might be motivated to do more about countering it and alleviating the suffering it causes others, however distant they might seem when viewed on our TV screens.