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January 18, 2005
Photos of Young Victims of Tsunami Offend Some But Not Others
New York Times Readers Offended
Star Tribune Readers Not Offended
I've discussed before in an entry or two the issue of graphic photos and how often readers are offended when newspapers print those type of photos. What I thought was interesting is how New York Times readers wrote to complain that they thought it was inappropriate for the Times to have printed photos of dead Tsunami victims, some of whom happened to be children. Meanwhile at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, they didn't get any complaints when they printed a photo of parents grieving over their dead child's body, though they expected some. One might think that readers in the Mid-West are more likely to be offended by photos of the young victims of the tsunami that lost their lives but that is apparently not the case.
In relation to the Star Tribune, they spend considerable time thinking about whether or not that particular photos should run. They did get complaints about a photo they ran which showed an Iraqi election official being pulled from his car moments away from being executed and a photo of the Randy Moss fake mooning incident. The readers who complained about the Iraq photo felt it was too graphic for children to see. Yet, the man in the photo hasn't been killed yet. The photo is shocking to see that these things happen in broad daylight in Iraq and it was exactly that reason which prompted the photo editor to run it. Why is it the newspaper's responsibility to shelter these folks' children from things that are shocking or disturbing? It seems to me that is the responsiblity of the parents themselves. As for the Randy Moss incident, one reader felt that the newspaper shouldn't give him so much attention by running his photo because it will encourage him. That may be true that Moss enjoys the attention, but a newspaper can't stop printing news photos because the subject is an attention hog. That deprives the reader of knowing what exactly it was that Moss did that got people so worked up.
Posted by silverdsl at January 18, 2005 10:56 AM