In defence of the shocking

Bernard-Henri Levy picks apart the media reaction to the Paris Match Taliban photographs taken by photographer Veronique de Viguerie and asks the question – When are news photographs too shocking for public consumption? – After firing a broadside at the commentators and government officials who lambasted de Viguerie and Paris Match, he offers a staunch defence of journalists,

They are journalists, not social workers or soldiers or military auxiliaries. They are not part of a strategy, nor do they participate or enlist in a war effort.
Their duty, their only duty, is to show, to reveal, to lay out what they can, to extract the truth from the vast realm of what is hidden and cannot be shown.
At the risk of shocking? Yes, at the risk of shocking. At the risk of waking people up. At the risk of telling the public–which, as usual, really does not want to look–that it must look.
At the risk of embarrassment? Yes, at the risk of embarrassment. At the risk of breaking down the wall of silence, forcing the military to tell the families something it clearly did not want to say–that at least one of the 10 soldiers was murdered with a knife. link