Loss Of Innocence

In our world of instant communication, news of death and disaster reaches us almost as it is happening, resulting in a barrage of violent images from the four corners of the globe.

In the past, news of tragedies from afar arrived slowly, if atall.There were major earthquakes in central China earlier this century, for example, that the West has only just learned about.

But there has been a recent change in journalism which raises worrying questions as to where reportage is headed - the photographic portrayal of corpses.

At one time, in deference to the families of the bereaved, unless the nation was at war, bodies of the dead would not be shown. Not any more. In television reporting of the recent hurricane in Honduras and Nicaragua, bloated corpses were shown in the casual disarray of death: an arm sticking from the mud, two women entwined together, a child's legs protruding from under a tree trunk.

Is it inevitable that the nonstop cacophony of horror, which arrives with our morning newspaper or telecast, has hardened us? Are we becoming inured to tragedy? Is it a good thing that we no longer flinch from the sight of slaughter and violence? What do children think or feel when they can connect a harsh visual image with the word "death"?

Will we become more compassionate now that we know the face of death, or does this practice represent a loss of innocence that we should have avoided?