Barthes claims news photographs and pornography cannot possess punctum. Why not?

To answer your question, one needs to understand Barthes
definition of punctum. Punctum, a
Latin word indicating a puncture wound or grammatical punctuation, is an inherent
quality of a photograph. It is something that the photographer captures through his
sense of art and observation, through what Barthes calls the photographer's "second
sight" (Camera Lucida, Barthes).
Punctum cannot be arranged by the photographer--it occurs before the photographer's eyes
and they have the foresight (or second sight) to capture it. Often, punctum juxtaposes
elements that are discontinuous with
each other: out of continuity; from separate spheres; living opposing lives; having
disparate experiences in a shared space.

An example of discontinuance
is the famous Koen Wessing photograph showing href="http://sites.google.com/site/bintphotobooks/KoenWessingNicaragua782.jpg"> two
nuns passing behind three soldiers carrying weapons--the second nun is looking
out toward the soldiers with stiffened features (perhaps in repugnance or dread). There
is a discontinuance between the world of the nuns and that of the soldiers; between the
soldiers focus and feelings and that of the nuns; between what the nuns are on their to
attend to (ministering of some sort) and what the soldiers are attending to (military
protection of some sort).

The nuns puncture the quietude of the
observer's experience with the photograph. They send a small wound to the observer's
psychological and emotional experience and perception. The nuns punctuate the photograph
and thereby divert attention away from a simple chronicle of a moment and toward a
special and unique occurrence frozen in time. Punctum is that inherent quality in the
photograph that is neither planned nor arranged and that arrests the observer's
experience with the photograph.

News photographs chronicle events and
thus are said not to contain punctum. While this is generally true, it may be argued
that it might occur that a photographer who is chronicling a news event may, through
photographer's second sight, wittingly or even unwittingly capture a moment punctuated
by punctum. Therefore it may be true that while the general rule is chronicles of news
events do not contain punctum, the exception to the rule may be that news photographers
may indeed capture discontinuous moments exposing punctum.

Pornography
cannot contain punctum because pornographic photographs are carefully arranged by the
photographer--and models are carefully posed, lighted, made up--to deliberately capture
the most dramatized erotic images. It may be argued, however, that someone taking covert
pornographic photographs may inadvertently hit upon a discontinuous moment and thus
inadvertently capture a moment of punctum. Nonetheless, due to the undirected,
unplanned, un-prearranged nature of photographs that capture discontinuance resulting in
punctum--photographs that are a product depending upon second sight--it may be generally
stated that news photographs, which chronicle, and pornographic photographs, which are
carefully arranged for a heightened effect, do not possess Barthes concept of
punctum.