ABSTRACT
The ragged, endless shape owes something to the historical origins of the campaign and something to press practice. In the absence of an open war with a clear narrative, the press aligns terrorism with the fear of horrible deaths. The conventions of press language are parallel to those of photo-journalism, both operating within boundaries. Although photo-journalists are often unable to be present immediately at scenes of death, there are stock methods of treating the subject: photographs of wreckage; dignitaries who pay respects; survivors and rescuers: heroes and heroines; the law; and, preferably, a body. Press practice demands that photo-journalists see everything, whether the life-styles of ‘good’ consumers in the world of actual or comparative wealth and ‘normality’; or their contradiction in poverty and then in death. The repeats and serials of old stories of war or disorder, or of strangely foreign murders, acquire their tidy solutions within the framework of press practice.
