There has been controversy over photographs of the Riverside terror attack.
Initially the government requested a blanket ban on pictures of the attack.
This was impractical. Kenyans were desperate for information and it is the job of the media to inform the public. The media continued, rightly, to publish photos.
Obviously there are limits. The media should not publish photos that might assist terrorists — for instance, it would have been reckless to have shown Special Forces arriving at Riverside before they had gone into action. Here the media must exercise discretion.
The most difficult decision is whether to publish photos of dead bodies. In general this is not a good idea, especially if the individual can be identified. But sometimes the news value overrules sensitivities. A line of bodies executed in a Wajir quarry in 2014 illustrated the brutality of al Shabaab.
Photos from World War II concentration camps, still often published today, remain crucial evidence that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
So pictures of terror attacks are necessary but must be handled sensitively.
Quote of the day: "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Rudyard Kipling
The Anglo-Indian writer died on January 18, 1936
