Of Lawyers and Photojournalists
“Human Torch” Greg Marinovich
I had the opportunity to visit the Newseum in Washington D.C. today. As its name implies, the Newseum is a museum dedicated to showcasing the art and craft of newsmaking. The shiny new exhibits and glitzy touch screens present information in an appealing manner compelling you to stay at the musuem for hours and explore every nook and cranny. However, if you follow the instructions of the docents at the ticket counter and take the elevator downstairs to the main exhibits, you are likely to miss the most compelling exhibit. Instead, take a right at the ticket counter to the Pulitzer Prize exhibit where some of the most compelling photographs from Pulitzer Prize winning photographers are on display.
I challenge you to walk away unmoved.
The photo above is one of the more popular ones on display. Greg Marinovich’s “Human Torch” is a depiction of a Zulu man being burned alive by ANC supporters while a machete is driven straight through his skull. The exhibit also features interactive displays with additional photos and video interviews of the photographers. Additional photos of the horrifying events preceding “Human Torch” can be viewed at one such display in step-by-step detail:
First, Marinovich begins taking innocuous photos of a boy walking down the street of a barren urban landscape on a stark, bright afternoon. It seems entirely too suddenly that a group of men converge upon the victim with knives and sticks. They drive the blades into his sides and slash at his unexposed head. Though blood begins to stain the bright lavender of his shirt, he lives and attempts to walk away. The men continue to attack and his blood continues to flow. None of the photos show him fighting back.
Dusk falls suddenly in the last photo (above). Still reeling from his wounds, in the shimmering heat of the setting afternoon sun … the man is lit on fire. But as Marinovich tells it, the bloodied and broken man, his shirt no longer lavender but a bright bloodstained red, runs away attempt to save his life. Stabbed, bleeding and now engulfed in flames he lunges for safety. His attackers do not let him get away. Marinovich begins to scream the man’s innocence, pleading for the mob to stop. His words have no effect. As the burning man lunges for safety one of the attackers plunges an already bloodied machete into the dying man’s burning skull. Marinovich, as if spellbound, keeps snapping picture after picture, capturing the seminal shot above.
Fleeing from the scene himself Marinovich holds in the terror until he reaches his car and slams the door shut. Sitting there, he screams his agony banging his fists into the steering wheel again and again.
This is the story behind “Human Torch” (above), as retold at the Newseum and supplemented with what I have managed to learn online. All of the photos on display at the Pulitzer Prize exhibit are the fruit of similar poignant narratives - sometimes cheerful, often morose. Though they are moving, what struck me more than the photos was the role of the photographer. Why did Marinovich proclaim the man’s innocence? The mob could just as easily have turned on him. His behavior was especially interesting in light of his professional responsibilities as a disinteresed observer rather than a participant in the events he captures on camera. A photographer is generally loathe to influence the course of his or her subject’s narrative. Yet the scene in front of Marinovich was so disturbing that it compelled a reaction.
There are examples of when an emotionally intense scene nonetheless ellicits no reaction from its photographer. For instance, the exhibit included another photograph of a starving child in Ethiopia who died because the photojournalist failed to move the child a few hundred feet to a food shelter. The photojournalist, unable to cope with his inaction, committed suicide one year after taking the photo of the starving child. As I spent hours viewing these photographs, it struck me that as an attorney I also labor under this burden of detached objectivity. Attorneys are often faced with the very human desire to intercede and make things right. Family lawyers, for instance, bear intimate witness to the pain and heartbreak of divorce and a large number burn out after a few years of practice.
Yet as advocates attorneys cannot become involved in the course of the dispute. By becoming involved attorneys lose the impartiality which allows them to competently represent the best interests of their client -in other words, advise the client on the best objective course of action, not what the client wants the best course to be. Impartiality allows attorneys to analyze and parse a dispute and present a coherent one-sided narrative of the conflict for a judge or jury.
Undoubtedly, there are some instances where intervention is an ethical and moral obligation. For instance, the photographer of the starving child in Ethiopia could easily have taken the child to the nearby food center after taking his photos. Nonetheless, what would have happened had Marinovich intervened in an attempt to quell the brutal mob? Even if he survived the mob, in all likelihood Marinovich’s intervention would have prevented him from taking that seminal photo and thus prevented him from delivering a powerful message about injustice and violence to the rest of the world.
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