Like Chapelle, Helen is acutely ambivalent about her moral position as a war journalist. She is intent on pondering whether those who represent war — through reporting or photography — are doing anything but replicating the violence they depict. Does war journalism change public opinion, or does it merely lead, as one photojournalist in “The Lotus Eaters” asks, to “a steady loss of impact until violence becomes meaningless”? Do gruesome images of war foster revulsion and opposition to violence on the part of the public, or do the images simply translate into war porn?