NYPost runs pic of teen shooting victim motionless in the street

[93Devil]

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.

 

[Small Town Guy]

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.

 

[Ace]

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

 

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

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.

 

[Rumpleforeskin]

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

"First, [Vada] was lying still. People started crowding around her, and after a few minutes, she jumped up," said horrified witness Jessica Sepulveda.

"She tried to stand up, but I told her to stay calm and lie down. I asked her if she had a phone to call her parents."

When Vada lurched forward, "Blood poured out of her head," Sepulveda said.

"Her friend was screaming. She was hysterical. She didn't know what happened to her."

 

[Drip]

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

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.

 

[93Devil]

Does age play a factor in this?

 

[WaylonJennings]

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.

 

[Songbird]

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.

 

[Drip]

Does age play a factor in this?

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

 

[Songbird]

Would the infant have been walking home, too?

 

[Drip]

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.

 

[Colin Dunlap]

A serious question here:
And I don't know where I fall on this particular photo, I am still deciding on how I feel about it.

But, are we reacting differently because the subject is lying on a street in the Bronx and not in Chechnya, Senegal, Yemen, Chad or the West Bank?

Are there different standards?
Is there a "close to home" quotient that humanizes it more and angers us more when, in reality, these type of photos are printed from time to time, but when the picture is from somewhere else in the world, it doesn't bother us as much?

 

[93Devil]

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.

Yes. Sorry, I was vague with that question.

 

[93Devil]

I think the fact that they are innocent victims comes into play for me. She did not commit a crime, but her life is splashed across a news paper.

But then again I now realize that the great fire fighter picture from Oklahoma City falls into the same category.

 

[Drip]

A serious question here:
And I don't know where I fall on this particular photo, I am still deciding on how I feel about it.

But, are we reacting differently because the subject is lying on a street in the Bronx and not in Chechnya, Senegal, Yemen, Chad or the West Bank?

Are there different standards?
Is there a "close to home" quotient that humanizes it more and angers us more when, in reality, these type of photos are printed from time to time, but when the picture is from somewhere else in the world, it doesn't bother us as much?

Excellent point. Some photos, such as the one with the Vietnamese child running naked tears everyone up.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I remember reading a story about how how almost no papers/magazines ran any photos of people jumping off the Towers on 9-11, even on the first day, but especially not even a few days after. They sort of disappeared, even though a substantial number of people did die that day in that horrific way. So it is interesting to think about all those factors, such as the ones Colin mentioned, and the age, and the location and the fact it is the Post, and why can we see a dead body but people jumping were off-limits in the wake of a national tragedy, etc. Not sure what my point is.

Growing up, there were papers in the area and the state that got reputations for being papers that would show gruesome photos, from car accidents or whatever. But then I look back at old newspaper photos from the 1940s and 1950s, when papers were running large, detailed pictures of crumpled bodies in cars, murder victims, etc., and think, How could they get away with that stuff back then?

 

[Mediator]

i think things have swung too far in the direction of cleaning things up. This is a newspaper, the news is not always pretty, but you infantilize a population when you can't even show a flag-draped coffin. There have been a few days when I was stunned by a photo in the paper, such as a U.S. soldier cradling a small Iraqi girl whose mother's blood still covered her outfit, but that photo brought the reality of the war closer than all the shots of armored HumVees on the road to Basra.

 

[Boom_70]

I am still haunted by this photo some 45 years later. The cop in background just asked the poor guy for a "light"

 

[I Should Coco]

A serious question here:
And I don't know where I fall on this particular photo, I am still deciding on how I feel about it.

But, are we reacting differently because the subject is lying on a street in the Bronx and not in Chechnya, Senegal, Yemen, Chad or the West Bank?

Are there different standards?
Is there a "close to home" quotient that humanizes it more and angers us more when, in reality, these type of photos are printed from time to time, but when the picture is from somewhere else in the world, it doesn't bother us as much?

Great point. And we on the copy desk do try to think about this when we're picking wire photos.

About 5 or 6 years ago, there was a photo of an Iraqi boy who (if I remember correctly) lost both of his arms due to a bombing. The stumps that were left were bandaged. We had a huge newsroom debate about whether or not to run the photo, before my managing editor at the time weighed in and said, "This is what's happening, this is what happens in a war." We ran the photo, and I think we were right.

But to echo others, it's always a tough call when it's a child.