Like many war images, Lynsey Addario’s photo of the dead and dying was never guaranteed to be published. Newsrooms have for decades been cautious when it comes to displaying such graphic images, weighing the journalistic benefits of chronicling the horror against the distress it might cause readers and the victims’ families. . .

. . . ‘The image was so exceptionally graphic that the conversation was elevated to a high level [among editors] fairly quickly,’ said Meaghan Looram, the newspaper’s director of photography. ‘But the sentiment was universal. This was a photograph that the world needed to see to understand what is happening on the ground in Ukraine.’

~ Excerpt from a Washington Post article, 3-9-22, Paul Farhi

Up earlier than I expected. 5:00 a.m. or so. Went for an early swim, around 7:30. The pool was not busy, I swam a mile, feeling very satisfied. Then, home to Charlie and Suzi and took them out for the rounds of the river and wetlands and brook. The sky above us steely gray, impending snow. Indeed, it did snow in the early afternoon, an inch or so, promised to melt tomorrow. I have appreciated having the snow and ice gone––almost gone, except the wetlands with a thin sheaf of pretty ice, breaking up, unable to hold my weight. Today was a day of revision and revision and more revision. In my inbox, first thing, a response from a journal I had submitted to: they like two of the poems I sent and want to publish them, but they publish groups of poems, are hoping for five. Please send us another batch, they said, so they can find three more. So, I dug into my poems, seeing what might work along their interest in the two they selected. Engaged me in a lot of revision of poems that suddenly seem not quite there. Finally, I send them off, fingers crossed. Then, I still needed a new ending for the journal that said they liked a poem but felt the ending wasn’t quite right. So, I dug in and felt I found the new ending. Sent that off. We shall see. More horrific Ukraine news. I have had a very very quick look at the Lynsey Addario photo of the family deliberately targeted by the Russians and killed while evacuating. It’s too hard to look at, really. But seems right that it was published to document war crimes. And more war crimes. A maternity hospital deliberately targeted: we are witnessing genocide.