University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Departmental Papers (ASC) Annenberg School for Communication 1-1-2005 Death in Wartime: Photographs and the "Other War" in Afghanistan Barbie Zelizer University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers Part of the Journalism Studies Commons Recommended Citation Zelizer, B. (2005). Death in Wartime: Photographs and the "Other War" in Afghanistan. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 10 (3), 26-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X05278370 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/68 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Death in Wartime: Photographs and the "Other War" in Afghanistan Abstract This article addresses the formulaic dependence of the news media on images of people facing impending death. Considering one example of this depiction — U.S. journalism's photographic coverage of the killing of the Taliban by the Northern Alliance during the war on Afghanistan, the article traces its strategic appearance and recycling across the U.S. news media and shows how the beatings and deaths of the Taliban were depicted in ways that fell short of journalism's proclaimed objective of fully documenting the events of the war. The article argues that in so doing, U.S. journalism failed to raise certain questions about the nature of the alliance between the United States and its allies on Afghanistan's northern front. Disciplines Journalism Studies This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/68 Death in Wartime Photographs and the "Other War" in Afghanistan Barbie Zelizer This article addresses the formulaic dependence of the news media on images of people facing impending death.