People say that it is possible to measure how civilised a society is by the way it treats its dead. To this end, the portrayal of death in some segments of our news media has become more explicit. Though obscured, graphic images of the dead have become more commonplace, and I fear it won’t be long before even these blurred or blacked-out images are abandoned for their unedited versions.
When violence and death happen in the real world, the news media are supposed to cover it. However, death is often presented through sensation and drama, like in the movies. More and more, the news media are seeing to it that the blood from these dramatic deaths is spilt into our sitting rooms. And as a society, we appear to have become desensitised to the increasing loss of life in our community and the media’s portrayal of the remains of these poor souls.
Our duty to fraternal love demands that we show proper respect and care for the bodies of the deceased. This obligation extends not only to relatives and friends, but to strangers, rogues and villains. For not even death can rob us of our fundamental dignity as humans.
Death is natural — something that will happen to each of us. However, as it is said: If we no longer treat the dead with dignity, what hope is there for the living? Therefore, death in the media should be presented with greater subtly. When the media treat a dead body as if it were no more than an inanimate object, they dehumanise not just the person who has died, but themselves and the society as a whole. Yet this is just what is being done.
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