Imagine you were the spouse or parent of the young woman who was the lone fatality in this week’s Hoboken train crash.
Already overwhelmed by grief marked by the shocking tragedy, you open up the New York Post the next day to see the coverage of the crash. Then, as you turn to page 3, you cannot believe what you see.
There, in a large photo, lies the body of your loved one, Fabiola deKroon.
The body is not covered.
Talk about sensationalism.
WHAT WAS THE REASON??
What were the editors thinking? Is it more important to sell papers or respect the family of the deceased?
Or was The Post simply adding to the discussions that take place in journalism classes about such editorial choices?
Give the paper credit for publishing a letter to the editor today from a reader who questioned the decision to publish that photo. I assume a lot of other letters were sent to The Post.
For years, in the realm of journalism education where I labored as a professor, we put a lot of emphasis on media ethics and discussed cases where decision-making was questioned.
OK TO PUBLISH PHOTO OF A PERSON ABOUT TO DIE??
I lived in the Boston suburbs in 1975 when the Boston Herald published a photo of a woman and her grandchild falling from a burning building. The woman died but the child survived. Critics called the photo an invasion of the family’s privacy but the photo took the coveted Pulitzer Prize in photography. More than three decades later the photographer, Stanley Forman, pointed out that those in the photo were not dead when the picture was taken, apparently arguing that, were they already dead, they should not be in published photos. So I assume he would have criticized the NY Post photo this week.
WHAT IS GOOD NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY?
I cannot figure out how the New York Post determines good photography. About five years ago it was under fire after publishing a photo of a man hanging on a subway platform and about to get hit by a train. Readers wondered why the paper’s photographer did not go and help to save the person as opposed to taking the photo.
It was simply upsetting for NY Post readers to see the victim’s body in a photo this week, and I am betting that the person who snapped the photo probably was a bystander who sold the image for a few bucks.
No matter what, I doubt if any editor with a sense of ethics would have allowed the photo to be published. It was an example of media insensitivity. DeKroon’s family should be outraged.
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