The media is responsible for delivering complete and truthful information to the world, and terrorism is a topic the general public deserves to be well-informed about.

However, some news networks in France are refusing to do their jobs by refraining from publishing the photos of ISIS assailants in a stand against terrorism.

It is not the obligation of journalists to withhold certain information because they’ve decided that doing so might give terrorist publicity that they seek.  As journalists, these outlets need to realize that people have the right to be informed of the heinous events occurring in the world.

Photographs of a captive kneeling before his executioner, dead bodies in the aftermath of an attack or even just a terrorist’s face are not shown to the public by most news networks.

Exposing people to such sights, they say, is free advertisement for terrorist organizations searching for potential new recruits.

But if pictures of these terrorists and their actions should be hidden for fear of “glamorizing” their acts of terror, news networks might as well grant visual anonymity to rapists and murderers too.

Revealing the faces of these people and the results of their actions to the world will not glorify such people for their actions; rather, it will shame them by exposing the full extent of their horrific actions.

Seeing the faces of each terrorist is what  makes each event unique to readers. Media censorship will desensitize terrorist events as normal, forgettable tragedies.

As a result, it will only breed ignorance as people start to forget the gruesome realities of how those deaths occur.

Every terrorist attack will seem the same, and the full impact of these events is lost without photographs.

Removing the images will only emotionally disconnect the readers to the story.

All of the victims of terrorism deserve justice. But how will that justice be delivered to them and their grieving families when the media is so adamant in not giving their attackers an identity?

It’s only right for the faces of those who have caused such trauma to these families to be known to the world.

People who see them, whether it be in photos or in person, should recognize them as the villains they are.

The images need to be out there for those who wish to be informed to the fullest extent.