Last year, the ultra-powerful website The Huffington Post ran a haunting slideshow depicting urban decay in Detroit. It was an online hit: some 25,000 people posted a “like” verdict on Facebook and 4,000 placed comments online.
No surprise there, perhaps. Not only were the photos stunning but they also tapped into one of the great themes – and anxieties – of modern America: industrial decline. As such, they were perfect “economic disaster porn”, as some pundits like to say.
But there is a catch. A couple of years earlier, some equally brilliant pictures of Detroit’s decline were also displayed on Magnum Photos’ website. But while those ones displayed the haunting faces of the city’s inhabitants, they caused no ripples at all, receiving just 21 comments in three years, tantamount to media death.