I was reading recently about how many photographers covering world events such as wars are taking a step back. The recent deaths of a couple well known(at least in our field) photojournalists on combat has started up a debate as to how important are these images that most people do not see and the risk photographers take in making them. The fact that these images are not widely known is troubling. Many newspapers choose not to publish them because they feel their readers don't want to see them. They are probably right. But should we see them anyway? I am asked to lecture every once in awhile about community journalism and I use this picture I took several years ago of an accident scene where a child riding his bicycle was struck and killed by a car. Was this picture important enough to show our readers? We put it on the front page. What is the impact to society showing a tragedy like this--one that is really a tragedy on the family and friends of the victim--and the driver. I find it important to to show these images. Personally, I don't like dealing with these photos. I'd like these events to never happen. But they do. Wars are sort of easy to defend why we photograph them....but still few people look at them with the understanding that only action against war will ever stop it. Most see it and complain that it goes on, but few ever do anything about it. The photographers and writers out in the midst of it all to document for history are doing it because they believe if they don't---who will? And if no one does--what will ever be done about it? Locally when an accident occurs and someone dies....the same principles apply. If we don't document it, who will learn? I know a picture like Stanley Foreman's photo of a mother and children plummeting from a collapsing fire escape led to laws that made fire escapes safer. This picture I took I had hoped that maybe, just maybe parents talked about road and bike safety after this appeared in the paper and that drivers might take a little more care when they see children playing on or near the road. We never really know the impact our pictures have, but we hope they do--not because we took them, but because they were there for us to take. Meadville Tribune file photo by Richard Sayer.