NYPost runs pic of teen shooting victim motionless in the street

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bronx_girl_shot_in_crossfire_horror_0MtRg63rMwDeMebSIUukhI

Comments?

Personally, I think this crosses a thick line, but the Post often crosses this line.

I cannot ever remember seeing a photo like this in a newspaper when you consider the age, 15, of the victim.

 

The Daily News - the paper version at least - has the same picture, from a different angle. And in theirs, you don't see any of the girl, she's cropped out. You see the bystanders and part of the person helping her. The Post's shot seems too much - I haven't seen the hard copy version, I'm assuming it's the same. Maybe they think it will shock youngsters into being careful with their guns, as there have been several high-profile shootings involving young victims. Yeah, that's their intent.

 

I don't see any blood. I think it's OK to run. Hope she's OK.

 

How big was this picture in the paper? Two columns? Four? I'll say this, it'd be something completely different if this photograph was from the other side, showing her face. THAT would be too much. But this photo, from the backside, and there's no blood ... I don't have a problem with this. Shocking? Yes. But this walks right up to the line without crossing it. I'd have a real problem if it showed her face, or as Ace said, if there was blood everywhere.

My father used to buy the Post for Giants coverage. Around 1982 or '83, the Post ran a story about a large dump truck that had backed over some sedan and crushed the people inside. "Blood gushed from the car," was a line in the story, and there was a picture of the sedan with blood clearly seen on the road - I'm pretty sure it was on the front page.

I was 6 or 7 years old at the time when I read that, and I can still remember that picture and that line in the story clear as day. That's an image you just don't forget ... probably because I never would have seen that picture or read that line in our hometown paper.

 

What the picture doesn't show, the story says it all...

 

I agree with Ace. I've been in a position of having to make a call like that a few times. Each time, I thought about 1, is the person dead and secondly, if it is too bloody. Only once did I have to tke a picture out because the person died. Other times, the picture wasn't too graphic.
The paper caught flack from some family members but that was about it.

 

Does age play a factor in this?

 

It's an incredibly powerful photo. These reports of shootings from the inner-city always seem so surreal to me, like I can't imagine what it would be like to witness something that horrifying. TV shows like "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" have done a good job replicating the grit, but you still know it's play acting, no matter how realistic.

 

In Jamaica I photographed 4 death scenes. All 4 got into the paper, including a teenage boy whose body was crumpled on a dusty sidewalk, about 100 slack-jawed gawkers staring down at him.

 

Yes. I don't think I would've run a shot like that if it was an infant.

 

Would the infant have been walking home, too?

 

Don't know if the question is directed to me but I think he was asking using a picture like that with a young subject.