ESSAY: Photojournalism; Images of War & Public Opinion

[Frank W. Baker]

From the latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, author Michael Mayer writes: "Photographs are the way we experience the physical reality of a war fought on foreign soil. They’re our most potent totems of a war’s purpose and meaning. They’re the way we know what a charred body looks like hanging from a bridge, the way we know what a famine victim in Somalia looks like (an image considered a factor in the US decision to intervene in that country’s tribal wars), and the way we know what a Marine looks like being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu (an image many say precipitated the US decision to withdraw). In a sense, they’re the way the American public knows most concretely that we are even at war."  Read more here.