Bloodied images of Libya’s hunted dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, were splashed across numerous front pages this year, igniting the debate of whether exposing such brutality was justified.
The debate on whether to publish or not is tackled by former editor and journalist Victor Aquilina in the foreword of this year’s The Times Picture Annual.
Mr Aquilina, who was at the helm of The Times for 10 years and left behind a legacy of sound journalism, speaks about the difficult decisions editors face in circumstances where the medium’s demarcation lines risk being overstepped.
“The issue of where to draw the line in the publication of pictures that readers may consider offensive, distasteful or even disgusting is as thorny as the socio-moral ethics involved in privacy intrusion,” Mr Aquilina, who is the annual’s consulting editor, writes.
“The issue over whether to publish gruesome pictures or not is unlikely to go away in a world where violence has become so rampant,” he adds.
It is with this philosophy in mind that the decision was taken to exclude from the picture annual the shocking images of Col Gaddafi in the minutes before he was killed and shown no mercy by the people who faced his ruthless tyranny during his 42-year dictatorship.
However, the annual still promises to take the reader on a journey through a year punctuated by the Arab Spring, which absorbs the biggest section and includes photos taken by both international and The Times’ photographers Jason Borg, Matthew Mirabelli, Chris Sant Fournier and Darrin Zammit Lupi.
From news to people, arts, entertainment and quirky images, the picture annual presents 160 colour images, including some that have never been published.
The annual, the sixth in the series published by Allied Publications, is a pick of the best pictures shot for The Times and The Sunday Times covering the period between November 11, 2010 and November 10, 2011.
The annual, edited by Mr Zammit Lupi and designed by MediaMaker, is available from today from Word for Word, Castille Place, Valletta and all leading bookshops.