"He won the prize for stepping on the corpse of a little girl, he didn't deserve it!" said a South African photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism for a photograph in 1994, but the invective poured in.
In 1993, Sudan was plunged into a protracted civil war and severe famine, and countless innocent lives struggled to survive the disaster.
In the heart of the African country, hunger and death are routine, and many children are weakened by chronic malnutrition.
In order to draw international attention to this dire situation and seek additional assistance and support, the United Nations invited Kevin Carter, a freelance photographer from South Africa, and his companions to Sudan to document and report on the tragedy.
Their mission is to convey the suffering of the Sudanese people to the world through photographic lenses, with a view to arousing compassion and action among more people.
After a long journey and difficult conditions, Carter finally reached the interior of Sudan, the hardest hit by famine, and the sight was heartbreaking, with people dying from food shortages, scrawny children, bloodless and hollow-eyed, lying feebly on the dusty ground, waiting for help.
During a United Nations rescue team distributing relief food, Carter witnessed a harrowing scene of an emaciated little boy, who looked to be no more than three or four years old, curled up on the ground, his body so weak that he could barely move, and even looked like he could not even lift his head, and not far from him, a greedy vulture had quietly landed, staring at the child as if waiting for something.
The appearance of this vulture makes this picture even more miserable and desperate, and its existence is not only a threat to the life of the little boy, but also a challenge to human dignity.
In the face of such a shocking scene, Carter, who was keen on professionalism, did not hesitate to raise his camera and press the shutter to freeze this heart-wrenching picture.
The photograph, titled "Hungry Sudan," caused a global repercussion and undoubtedly won the Pulitzer Prize, shocking the hearts of countless people and arousing sympathy and concern for the Sudanese people.
The photo quickly spread all over the world and attracted wide attention from the international community, and many people were touched by the image in the photo and reached out to donate money and materials, hoping to provide some help to the people of Sudan.
But after the photo was published, some public opinion began to condemn Carter for why he didn't save the child in the first place, but ignored it. Some people directly accused him of trampling on humanity in order to win awards, and even compared him to the corpse-eating vulture.
Although the Pulitzer Prize judges acknowledged that Carter had explained the background of the shooting, that the child was not unattended and that the mother was receiving relief supplies, this explanation was deliberately omitted by some media outlets, and the truth was misrepresented and covered up.
In order to pursue hot news, these media did not hesitate to distort the facts and mislead the public, which caused great damage to Carter's image and credibility.
Unwarranted suspicion and abuse rained down like a torrent of suspicion and abuse, Carter's reputation plummeted, opportunities and livelihoods were cut off one after another, and to his dismay, a friend was tragically killed while following in his footsteps, which was undoubtedly the last straw that pushed him to a dead end.
Isolated and devastated, Carter finally chose carbon monoxide poisoning to commit suicide, ending his 33-year life.
It wasn't until many years later that the truth was revealed, and the "little girl" in the photo was actually a little boy named Kong Nyon, who was wearing a plastic ring to represent that he had been rescued.
Carter captured that brutal moment not to win an award, but to draw the world's attention to what happened to the Sudanese people.
The whirlpool of public opinion at the time obscured the truth of the facts, and unverified rumors and moral kidnappings destroyed the life of an innocent photographer.
Source: "After taking this photo, the photographer committed suicide... Sohu.com
