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Photo of the drowned Syrian boy, run it or don't run it?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by YankeeFan, Sep 4, 2015.

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  1. HC

    HC Well-Known Member

    I hope that their denial is true, Elliotte. Agree with you about running the photo and hoping for the whole story.
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Mexican and Central American migrants can have a tough time getting here. They can be mistreated by smugglers, and can die in the dessert.

    But, they're mostly fleeing for economic reasons, which makes the situation a lot different.

    And, the European crisis is really incredible. Between the drownings off the coast of Libya, the death by suffocation in Austria, and the current crisis in Hungry, it dwarfs anything we are dealing with.
     
  3. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Heartbreaking and gut wrenching. I'm not sure I understand the reasons why you wouldn't run it.
     
    amraeder likes this.
  4. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Are you generally a "run it" guy?
     
  5. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    That it makes me sick is not the reason I wouldn't run it.

    I should clarify that I'd probably run the one the Times ran.

    Anything more graphic would carry such shock value it would distract from the actual story. IMO.

    Much like why I wouldn't run an ISIS beheading photo, or a collage of a reporter getting shot on live TV. It makes the story about "viral" photos and my editorial judgment, instead of the news itself.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Do you think that modern communications have altered how you would approach those decisions?

    For example, if this were 1972 instead of 2015, do you run the photo because that danger isn't present like it is now?
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I think that by choosing the lesser of two photos, you are making the story more about your own editorial judgement.

    Maybe it would be different if the picture was graphic in some nature. This photo is incredibly sad, but it's incredibly moving, and even beautiful in its own way too.
     
    HC likes this.
  8. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps the holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided.” -- Kafka
     
    YankeeFan likes this.
  9. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    How many people saw that photo and thought, "I can't read the story"?
     
  10. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    That's a good question.

    But, there is a difference between thinking, "I can't read the story," -- and then probably doing it anyway, perhaps precisely because the photo is so compelling, and saying, "I won't (bother to) read that story" -- because the second photo is not compelling enough to make you do so.

    The original, stronger photo has impact -- needed, positive impact, despite the tough image. The weaker photo of a faceless-in-the-picture boy being carried in a not-clear-what-situation-is way does not, so that answers the question for me.

    And I say that as someone who would not have run the series of photos of the broadcast reporter in the process of being shot to death. The difference for me was in the very series, and the fact that N.Y. Daily News ran it precisely and only for its shock value, not its news value. The original photo here is heart-breaking, but not shocking, and it goes with the story strongly, rather than almost entirely superseding it.
     
  11. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    I usually am, except in the case of the Roanoke shooting or this. I think the less graphic of the two images would be my choice. And the idea that choosing that would focus the story on the editorial decision is absurd. Readers don't care that much about editorial decisions except in extreme cases (like choosing this photo or the way the NYDN treated the Roanoke shootings). I think the photo of the child being carried is heartbreaking enough. The other one is too much for me. I agree that it generally won't change the focus on the problem. For most, it's still someone else's problem.
     
  12. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    WT, excellent points.

    I saw both pictures, and tried to think what if I had seen just one and not the other. I'm not sure I would fully understand the one with the boy being held. Is the child alive?

    But the one of him washed up? More compelling, by far.

    And not that we should think this way, but side by side, the photo of the boy still lying at water's edge is much more Pulitzer-worthy in my opinion. Run it.
     
    YankeeFan likes this.
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