Pictures..

The only photos I would run, with some degree of sensitivity, would be the first photo, the boy with his dog, and the boy who fell on a fence.  The rest of the photos I would not run at all.

 

All of these photos are well done.  The photographer was there at the exact moment, caught the complexity of human emotion after the loss of someone special or the intensity of mob mentality.  I am not claiming that these photos would not capture the essence of the story, but they lack a certain sense of sensitivity that is necessary in journalism.

 

That was my main criterion, sensitivity.  People do not want to see death, it is disrespectful to the person who died and those that were grieving.  The photo of the little boy is different only because it is not a human dead, but even then I would hesitate on running that photo.

 

These photos should not be run, especially if they are local.  They convey too much suffereing to be run.  It is just the same with Sept. 11, I am sure people had some very graphic photos, but they were not (or should have not) run out of respect.

 

When it all comes down to it, that is the main idea, respect.  We, as journalists, should be respectful of other people’s feelings.  It is hard to respect the line between appropriate and inappropriate, but it is there.  Running these photos would be exploiting human nature to it’s core.

 

To me, the hardest photo to look at was the photo from Mardi Gras.  It shows humans at their worst, clawing at a woman, grabbing her inappropriately, against her will.  It is obscene, and it is just inappropriate, I would not want that photo to run in my publication, nor any of these other photos to if I could help it.

 

Good journalism should speak for itself, photos accompany the story.  A photographer could get less evasive photos, even if they are not as good.  It is the right thing to do, and you avoid having the field questions from people who were offended by the photos.