Would you take down the photo?

Yes to both. It is on the website and it will run page 1.

 

We use Facebook to tease stories and drive traffic to our own website or print publications.

If something is big enough news to be used as the promo on our Facebook page, it's going to be easily defended because it will undoubtedly be newsworthy because there is an established process for determining the content of those blurbs.

We don't use Facebook as a publication platform.

If smaller papers are doing so, I think it's a bad idea.

Even if the paper in the OP is only using Facebook as a promotional tool, the publisher has now established the precedent that photos of vehicles that are involved in fatal accidents can be taken off the Facebook page if someone complains.

 

What I'm learning from this experience is a)I should follow Oggie's example and use Facebook as promotional. Doubt it would have saved today's headache, but it sounds like a good plan of action b) people line up to shit on us for not getting information up fast enough c) people will also line up to shit on us for posting information too fast (not enough time to notify other family before the coroner made the name of the person who died public) d) people find other reasons to shit on us when too many are utilizing options B and C.

E) Thank God for beer!

Oh, and every so often, there is actually one person out there who defends us for doing our jobs.

 

For something like an accident I think Facebook would be an appropriate publication platform. The news value is that an accident has closed down a part of a major road. That affects everyone planning to use that route. By the time the paper hits the doorstep the wreck will be cleared. At that point the news value is the person who was killed and the cause (if that has been determined). I wouldn't use a pic on FB for a fatal accident though.

 

Sadly, that is the real key

 

News isn't always pretty or happy or nice. Your publisher is a cowardly puss.

 

We had a similar situation with a train-car accident. I can understand the family's concern. However, we are a newspaper and it is our job to report the news. A death at a train crossing is news. It concerns not only the death of the person, but safety issues at the crossing as well. As for threats of a lawsuit, that happened here two weeks ago. I had a guy who came in to pick a fight over a story we'd ran. The story was factual and certainly not libelous, but he was trying to feed his ego. He told me he was going to get a lawyer and that he'd end up owning the place. I told him that everyone has lawyers and walked away. I normally wouldn't have said anything, but he called me a couples of names during the course of the conversation.

 

Caller has no grounds for a lawsuit. Public photo, every right to take photo, publish it. If the victim is not a public figure and you have a grieving relative asking you to take it down, there's no harm in taking it down if you want to be sensitive to the family's desires. But there's no grounds for any civil action.

 

Who was the victim? Were they a person of any type of standing in the community?