Pictures from the hunt - print or not?

[sweetbreads bailey]

Recently, a gentleman stopped by with a picture of the deer he shot while out hunting. It was an impressive one, but we're wrestling with whether to publish that or not (he mentioned it broke a record or something).

It was his pride and joy to be sure but do I want everyone in the world coming by with the bloody animals they've put bullets and arrows into? Just wondering what other community paper's policies are on hunting pictures...

SB

 

[21]

Ugh. No. Let him put it on the family Christmas card. Why should anyone have to look at that in the newspaper?

 

[Barsuk]

If you can confirm it broke some sort of record, I say you should run it. But you need to develop a clear-cut policy now on the standard to get a dead animal picture in the paper (state record, perhaps) and stick to it, or else you'll be running dead animal pictures in every edition.

 

[JR]

Other than the guy's family (and the dead deer's loved ones) who really cares?

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

If you can confirm it broke some sort of record, I say you should run it. But you need to develop a clear-cut policy now on the standard to get a dead animal picture in the paper (state record, perhaps) and stick to it, or else you'll be running dead animal pictures in every edition.

Good advice.

Also, depending on whether or not hunting is big in the area, your paper might consider a hunting tab.
One of my earlier stops did this. We advertised it, asking hunters for pictures. We took the collection of dead deer photos and ran them in a tab, that ran in Dec., at the end of bow and gun season.
The ad department got ads from the outdoor shops and gun clubs and such.. It was 12-page tab and we didn't have to worry about running bloody carcass photos in the sunday paper next to our 20 state championship (Insert age and sport HERE) photos that are submitted every week.

 

[Nathan Scott Phillips]

Ask the deer's family for his high school photo or something. That's usually how you handle a story on a murder.

 

[Barsuk]

Other than the guy's family (and the dead deer's loved ones) who really cares?

That depends, JR. In a big hunting area, you might be surprised how many people care, particularly if the dead animal in question represents some sort of record. Country boys (and girls) take their huntin' seriously.

 

[Football_Bat]

Ask the deer's family for his high school photo or something. That's usually how you handle a story on a murder.

Picture of the dead deer with his friends as a youth ...

 

[MilanWall]

Ask the deer's family for his high school photo or something. That's usually how you handle a story on a murder.

Picture of the dead deer with his friends as a youth ...

I knew what was coming, but it still made me laugh!

 

[JR]

That depends, JR. In a big hunting area, you might be surprised how many people care, particularly if the dead animal in question represents some sort of record. Country boys (and girls) take their huntin' seriously.

I was being semi-facetious. :)

 

[User 4755]

Could care less about hunting myself and think it's only a sport if you equip the deer with guns themselves. But this depends on what part of the country you're in and the size of your newspaper and market as well. I've worked in markets where the answer would be hell no never ever for any hunting photos. I'm in an area now where 75 percent of the people who show up for home games on NFL Sunday in November/December look like they've been in a deer stand for 24 hours. Most of the weeklies in this area not only run hunting photos, they run hunting sections in November...and many of the smaller dailies, even some of the bigger ones, have outdoors/hunting pages weekly as well.

 

[Ace]

Could care less about hunting myself and think it's only a sport if you equip the deer with guns themselves. But this depends on what part of the country you're in and the size of your newspaper and market as well. I've worked in markets where the answer would be hell no never ever for any hunting photos. I'm in an area now where 75 percent of the people who show up for home games on NFL Sunday in November/December look like they've been in a deer stand for 24 hours. Most of the weeklies in this area not only run hunting photos, they run hunting sections in November...and many of the smaller dailies, even some of the bigger ones, have outdoors/hunting pages weekly as well.

I'm with Danny, but I still wouldn't run it if the tongue is lolling out of the mouth or if there is a lot of blood (and find me a hunter who doesn't think he broke some kinda record).

 

[StaggerLee]

I'm not a big fan of dead deer (or any animal) picture appearing in print, but in our area, it's almost a way of life to have your hunt published in the outdoors section. I think our only policy is that the picture has to be "clean", meaning there is no blood smeared all over the hunter, or animal; the tongue can't be sticking out; the wound can't be showing, etc. Also, we only run pictures of a first kill, a rare kill or a record kill. If Buck Doe (pun intended) kills his 12th deer of his life, his picture won't appear. But if his daughter Bambi Doe gets her first kill, we'll run it.

We've never had any complaints from anyone about these pictures running. Of course, I'd imagine if you're anti-hunting, you'd have no reason to even look at the outdoors section. And you'd be surprised at how popular that part of the outdoors section is. We were reluctant to even have it.

And oddly enough, one of my better stories last year came about when one of the pictures submitted piqued my interest.

 

[Idaho]

I love that this ad is in this thread

And unless you have the DWR comfirm it's a record, give him directions to the advertising department where they'll hook him up with a special deal allowing him to toot his own horn.

 

[zeke12]

We have dead animal picture day. Everyone in the building hates it. But someone is convinced readers like it.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I got the high score in Big Buck Hunter at the local watering hole. You should put my picture in the paper, too.

 

[Some Guy]

Do you not have a weekly hunting/outdoors page or something? Every paper I've ever worked for has. Of course, every paper I've ever worked for has also been in Texas, so ...

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along. You get thirsty. You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water - BAM. A ****in' bullet rips off part of your head. Your brains are lying on the ground in little bloody pieces. Now I aks ya, would you give a **** what kind of pants the son-of-a-***** who shot you was wearing?

 

[expendable]

I got the high score in Big Buck Hunter at the local watering hole. You should put my picture in the paper, too.

You work just as hard as other hunters out there. ;D

 

[expendable]

Hunting/fishing/national champ pictures do get in my rag, but I sit on them for as long as I can before running them. I figure if I'm a little slow, it will slow others who want to put their picture in.