Why Not Images of Haiti – By Haitians?

‘There is a decades-old criticism of the “outsider,” most often journalists from developed nations, arriving in underdeveloped nations to tell the story of “insiders.” Whether HIV/AIDS in sub–Saharan Africa, conflict in the Middle East, violence in economically depressed U.S. inner cities, poverty and alcoholism in Native-American communities or, currently, victims of the earthquake in Haiti, the outsiders’ stories are often the only stories told. Criticism tends to focus not on the presence of journalists but, rather, on the ways in which they depict the story and the lack of acknowledgment that there is an equally if not more important role for local storytellers.’

Jim Hubbard writing in The Digital Journalist … a good read.

UPDATE:

duckrabbit has just received this thought provoking response:

This question really needs to be answered – particularly by the bigger NGOs. I’d love to see more examples of where it has been addressed.

Here’s some resistance I’ve encountered in private and non-profit sectors for letting the people we work with tell their own stories:

The quality won’t be good enough to show on big screens or print on posters – too shaky, blurry, badly framed

The image/story will be too unsettling for people unfamiliar with the subject – it’ll alienate rather than engage

It takes skill and experience to pull a strong, clear message from a situation and we haven’t the resources to teach that so we hire people that can already do it

My sense is that some (not all) media and communications people see their job as primarily about controlling the message – only they can do that and anyone else is a threat. Considering how that affects the people caught up in being part of an organisation’s message is someone else’s job. I’ve also found that suggesting such tight control weakens the validity of the message is dismissed as dumb. Thanks for sharing another challenge to this odd orthodoxy.