For those of us who still pick up a newspaper in the morning, the very few of us left, we are being exposed to photos that are much more graphic in nature than in the past. We can look to the editors of the papers and explain why these photos are being published, but what is it doing to our emotions and how we respond to these photos?
I’d be willing to argue that as a society we are less sensitive to many situations and we can partially thank the journalism industry. I remember learning about the cereal test when debating about publishing graphic photos or not. The cereal test basically says “Do I want to see this early in the morning while having breakfast with my family?” Well, we are long past that because now journalists use the excuse of “the photo explaining a story” and we wind up with photos of dead bodies from natural disasters on our front page.
The newspaper is also not the only place we can find these images, the internet can provide these graphic photos with hardly no barriers. The only thing is people need to search for them which is different from having the photos on the font page of the newspaper. The graphic and disturbing images are all over our news, movies, television shows, and even video games. And unfortunately, I don’t see any end in sight to this leading to our country being more desensitized than ever.