Local newspaper with front-page picture of car and deceased's family

In a local paper (thankfully not that one I work for), a picture was printed on the front page of a car being removed from a river/creek. The thing is the man that died in the car- his father is shown in the background and two of the man's children are also in the picture.

Some people on the newspaper's website are pretty upset that they would publish a photo of three grieving family members of a man that had just died.

Also, two of the pictures taken that day are on the website's "for sale" part.

What are your thoughts on it?

I'm new, so I don't know how to post pictures if anyone wanted to see what I was talking about.

 

Haven't seen the photo. Sounds perfectly fine to me.

 

Sometimes, getting a shot like that captures the emotion better than words could.

I would have a problem with it if they printed a picture of a dead body.

 

Small towns always have a problem when reality is pictured on the front page.

Having the pics for sale is a different story.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if video images of the exact same thing were shown on the evening news.

 

I understand the news value of them, but I also waffle on whether to publish them when I think of how I'd feel. I consider myself pretty private emotionally and would feel somewhat exploited when grieving right after losing a loved one. Sure we have to consider our jobs, but we shouldn't lose our compassion/empathy while doing so.

 

The photos:
http://thecourier.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=21340338&event=629927&CategoryID=19318

http://thecourier.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=21340337&event=629927&CategoryID=19318

 

People are upset about those photos? They aren't even close ups of the grieving family.

Selling the photo seems kind of dumb, but that is likely a technical problem whereby all photos are available for purchase and the system doesn't have the ability to mark some photos not for sale when they are uploaded to the website.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't even notice the people in the background. Hell, I couldn't even figure out which ones were the grivers.

Much ado, nothing.

 

WFW.

"How dare you people publish that photograph of poor Mr. Johnson's car trunk showing from the forest? You only put our photo in the paper when we die."

 

Seeing the photos, I agree. If they were up in their faces, that's a different story.

 

People are the worst.