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He may be a vulture, but vultures got to eat, too. I suppose it's a mixed bag with photojournalists like this. If he's employed to document natural disasters, one can hardly fault him for doing his job any more than one might fault the EMS responders for doing theirs.

And while he may have had strictly mercenary intentions for taking the photo, I would suspect that the victims of most natural disasters do, in the end, benefit from people like him when their on-site photos are used to stoke emotions (and open wallets) for disaster relief charity drives. For example, I doubt there would have been anywhere near the donations to Katrina relief, Haitian Earthquake, etc. without the footage and photos of the aftermath.

I do think it's incumbent on the editorial staff and publishers that they shouldn't publish identifiable photos of victims; that's just human decency.

And while he may have had strictly mercenary intentions for taking the photo, I would suspect that the victims of most natural disasters do, in the end, benefit from people like him when their on-site photos are used to stoke emotions (and open wallets) for disaster relief charity drives. For example, I doubt there would have been anywhere near the donations to Katrina relief, Haitian Earthquake, etc. without the footage and photos of the aftermath.

Good points.

...one can hardly fault him for doing his job any more than one might fault the EMS responders for doing theirs.

Best of all worlds would be to pay EMS responders, have them train constantly, and never need to use them. Like insurance, or your personal defense weapon; have it, hope to never need it.