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In my last Ask the Editor column I discussed the truthfulness of photographs we take and publish in The Frederick News-Post. What I hope you came away with is that there are some gray areas, but we do our best to present you with the truth. There are also gray areas in deciding what photos we will publish, even if we know they are 100 percent truthful. A recent example is a photograph provided by the Montgomery County Police last month. It was a homicide victim's face with eyes half open. The police wanted help from the public identifying the victim.
When editors here saw it they decided it was just too graphic to publish. The story ran without the photo. Some time later, the Montgomery County Police released a drawing of the victim's face for which the photograph was obviously used as a model. If we had gotten the drawing with the original news release, we most likely would have used it.
For those who are interested, here's the link to the story we ran: www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/archives/display_detail.htm?StoryID=93065
So how do we decide whether a photograph is too graphic to use? Like many things in life, it's both easy and hard to describe. Unlike stories, photographs can evoke immediate and strong reactions without conscious digestion.
Herein lies the power of photographs, one of which is worth a thousand words, as you know. So the easy answer is, you know it when you see it. Flags are raised. The hard part can be the analysis of a photograph that's powerful but close to crossing the line.
Where exactly is the line? Well, it's definitely more art than science to decide where this line is, and you, as readers, play an important part in the decision. Community standards are very important. Unfortunately, it's usually when we cross the line that we hear from you. We're a community newspaper, and your thoughts and feelings are important.
On the plus side, I can't recall any instance in the last 30 years where a photograph published by The Frederick News-Post produced an overwhelming protest. Yes, there certainly have been complaints about photos published but these have been few and far between. The main complaint by these few seems to be that we were callously insensitive to a victim or a victim's family.
We, in fact, try to be sensitive to the impact our photos and stories can have. We don't run photos of dead bodies or parts of dead bodies as in the Montgomery County Police example above.
We are even reluctant to run a photo of a dead body covered by a sheet. We do strive to cover events objectively, fairly and accurately. If a horrific traffic accident has happened this will hopefully and unfortunately be reflected in the photograph.
Personally, what I try to show when I photograph accident scenes or fires are our first responders doing their jobs. My first impulse is not to photograph the victims, but this could change if the event is of monumental proportions.
The photographer is the first layer of editing when he or she chooses the photos to submit. The news desk is the second layer of eyes on the photo. If questions on the propriety of publication persist, then the decision could go all the way up to our managing editor, Terry Headlee, and our publisher, Myron Randall.
Sometimes police and fire officials try to keep us from the scenes of news events; some even admit they are trying to restrict our coverage. While their intentions may be good, that is not how it's supposed to work in a free society. Our editors should be making the decisions on what news events we cover and how we cover them. If we make a mistake, you'll let us know.
An example of where the readers did let a newspaper know they made a mistake is from 1986 at The Bakersfield Californian, where our city editor, Rob Walters, was working as a reporter at the time. --
The photographer was John Harte, who took a photo at close range with a wide angle lens of a 5-year-old drowning victim with the top half of his body out of a body bag with grieving family right over him. The photo ran on the front page. The 80,000-circulation paper received 500 letters, 400 phone calls, 80 subscription cancellations and one bomb threat in protest of the photo.
Of this photo Walters recently wrote:
"I find it amazing that this photo still has legs, almost 25 years after John shot it. He said he is a regular on the university lecture circuit. Last year, he spoke at the Poynter-Jamison conference on Visual Ethics and Values at the University of South Florida. He presented with John Filo, the photographer who shot the Kent State shooting photo. John is a regular at Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach, and even did a talk at USC.
"John (Harte) defends publishing the photo to this day.
"Bob Bentley, our managing editor, made the call to publish the photo on A-1 because a number of people drown each summer in the Kern River or at Hart Park, next to the river, where John shot this photo.
"The community was furious. We even had a bomb threat and had to evacuate the building.
"Bentley later apologized for publishing the photo."
Fortunately, we have not had to deal with a similar situation here. We definitely would not have run Harte's photo as it ran in The Bakersfield Californian.
This discussion on photojournalism ethics and taste is ongoing and wide-ranging. There are college classes taught and books written on this.
