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Pictures from the hunt - print or not?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by sweetbreads bailey, Oct 18, 2007.

  1. Recently, a gentleman stopped by with a picture of the deer he shot while out hunting. It was an impressive one, but we're wrestling with whether to publish that or not (he mentioned it broke a record or something).

    It was his pride and joy to be sure but do I want everyone in the world coming by with the bloody animals they've put bullets and arrows into? Just wondering what other community paper's policies are on hunting pictures...

    SB
     
  2. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    Ugh. No. Let him put it on the family Christmas card. Why should anyone have to look at that in the newspaper?
     
  3. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    If you can confirm it broke some sort of record, I say you should run it. But you need to develop a clear-cut policy now on the standard to get a dead animal picture in the paper (state record, perhaps) and stick to it, or else you'll be running dead animal pictures in every edition.
     
  4. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Other than the guy's family (and the dead deer's loved ones) who really cares?
     
  5. Good advice.

    Also, depending on whether or not hunting is big in the area, your paper might consider a hunting tab.
    One of my earlier stops did this. We advertised it, asking hunters for pictures. We took the collection of dead deer photos and ran them in a tab, that ran in Dec., at the end of bow and gun season.
    The ad department got ads from the outdoor shops and gun clubs and such.. It was 12-page tab and we didn't have to worry about running bloody carcass photos in the sunday paper next to our 20 state championship (Insert age and sport HERE) photos that are submitted every week.
     
  6. Ask the deer's family for his high school photo or something. That's usually how you handle a story on a murder.
     
  7. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    That depends, JR. In a big hunting area, you might be surprised how many people care, particularly if the dead animal in question represents some sort of record. Country boys (and girls) take their huntin' seriously.
     
  8. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Picture of the dead deer with his friends as a youth ...

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  9. MilanWall

    MilanWall Member

    I knew what was coming, but it still made me laugh!
     
  10. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    I was being semi-facetious. :)
     
  11. Danny Noonan

    Danny Noonan Member

    Could care less about hunting myself and think it's only a sport if you equip the deer with guns themselves. But this depends on what part of the country you're in and the size of your newspaper and market as well. I've worked in markets where the answer would be hell no never ever for any hunting photos. I'm in an area now where 75 percent of the people who show up for home games on NFL Sunday in November/December look like they've been in a deer stand for 24 hours. Most of the weeklies in this area not only run hunting photos, they run hunting sections in November...and many of the smaller dailies, even some of the bigger ones, have outdoors/hunting pages weekly as well.
     
  12. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I'm with Danny, but I still wouldn't run it if the tongue is lolling out of the mouth or if there is a lot of blood (and find me a hunter who doesn't think he broke some kinda record).
     
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