Tragedy in photos, a new standard?

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Historically, the quick answer is no: Newspapers have not set a new standard during the week of Sept. 11, 2001, for running disturbing photographs. They have been running horrifying images for more than a generation.

However, the process by which the selections are made has changed a great deal -- as has the acceptance of the readers.

With the tragic events of Sept. 11, news media were faced with a constant stream of incredible images, ones that initially reminded many of the latest action movie they had seen.

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Does the use of this picture and those like it constitute a change in the standards and ethics exercised in newsrooms across the country - or something else?

Jim Wilson, chief picture assignment editor at The New York Times, looks at it this way: "These are the same standards applied to a very different type of event - calling for different thoughts."

This was a sentiment shared by everyone I talked to. But the decision to run this image, as you would expect, was not made lightly.

"The use of this picture was heavily debated at The Times, and we knew that some readers would fine it objectionable," Wilson said. "However, it told a unique element of the story that many wouldn't otherwise realize. And it was a horrific decision these people had to make, to jump. We (Times staff) saw various forms of this picture in many New York newspapers, but we felt that this one told its own story."

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There were three decisions we had to make: Do we run any of the AP pictures? If so, how many of the pictures? And where in the paper do we run them? We eventually chose to run five of the seven on A-1; however, they were run at the very bottom of the page in mug-shot style.

The decision to run the World Trade Center picture was just as charged, Wilson said. "Everybody, when they saw the picture, knew -- it was a moment of deep and personal reflection -- everyone knew we had to run this picture," he said. "Even with what the picture was telling us - we still didn't know if the person was blown out of the building or jumped - we just don't know."

Bill Marimow, editor of The Sun in Baltimore, Maryland, agrees but takes a slightly different view. "We used the same picture as a two-column by seven-inch on A-9. It was certainly part of the story," he said. "It didn't require us to use a 'new standard' at all. It is a tradition of American journalism that when the event or history is raised to a level of great importance, we use pictures that reflect that importance.

"Three notable examples come quickly to mind: the Vietnamese man shot on the street in Saigon, the little girl running down the highway after being burned in Vietnam, and the little girl and her mother plummeting from a burning apartment house in Boston. I think that was a Pulitzer winner. These pictures show intimate and awful glimpses of death or near death," Marimow said.

"Personally I feel that Tuesday (Sept. 11) was the worst day in American history, and the pictures we used were more symbolic of this tragedy and not personal revelations."

Many editors I talked to agreed that it is the event that most likely determines what visuals are used. A picture of someone leaping from a high-rise fire would not necessarily merit publication. But someone jumping or falling from the World Trade Center tower as a direct result of the greatest terrorist attack on our soil, for most editors, would.

"We haven't changed the standard but the magnitude," Marimow said. "The horror of the event determines the use of the photos. There are so many other things that we can adjust to minimize the sensitivity aspect, but we must not minimize the horror of the event."

Editors at The Sun also paid close attention to the Sept. 12 headline on the front page.

"We decided to use a single word for an event of this magnitude," Marimow said. "Our first was 'carnage.' When we put it on the page, it looked so raw and ugly that we changed it to 'devastation.' There is an analogy between the use of these types of pictures and the use of certain words."

As we know, this event sold a lot of words and pictures in newspapers. But is this unique? Ask any circulation director what happens when there is a disaster or tragedy: Circulation goes up. Because we can provide a lasting, in-depth chronicle in words and pictures, people who otherwise wouldn't read a newspaper, do. There is also a feeling of historic significance: Why else were copies of USA TODAY selling for $65 apiece on the giant Internet auction house e-bay the next day?

USA TODAY sold just shy of 4 million copies Sept. 12. Much of these sales can be attributed to the very visual nature of the paper.

Richard Curtis, managing editor/graphics for USA TODAY and a leader in visual thinking, said editors elected not to run the jump picture from AP. "We felt there were enough other images to tell the story." Newspapers that ran the picture did not set a new standard, Curtis said. "We have to approach each new event with a different set of standards," he said. "We apply them individually. We didn't need to use what we would call the sensational. I feel that there has been considerable restraint and thoughtfulness in the use of visuals in the media."

This, he said, was a change, especially considering the scope of the attacks, which have produced a tremendous number of images, gripping in their content, and reflecting the horror and the triumph in this tragedy. A good example is the rescue of a fireman from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

But as Wilson of The New York Times said, "There is an element missing here - the bodies. At this point, the bodies are just not visible." To millions of viewers and readers, the carnage has been limited to steel and concrete, and we have been spared the sight of bodies scattered across the landscape.

The question then arises, if we had pictures of the dead and dying, would we use them? And by what standards would we make the decisions?

The "Standard"

No one I talked to could articulate a "universal standard" by which to judge the appropriateness of an image - and rightly so. Each newspaper draws the line it is unwilling to cross. This is based on a number of factors, including the sensibilities of the community it serves, the proximity of the event to its audience, the direct relationship between the picture and telling the story (its news value), individual bias, and the public's right to know.

The picture of a young drowning victim in Bakersfield, California, is a good example. It is a compelling news photo that has direct relevance in a local area but is nothing more than sensationalism outside that area. An editor in Springfield, Illinois, would, we hope, see this as gratuitous and decline to use it.

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Have standards changed? No. Are the standards different across the country? Yes. Yet with the differences, there does seem to be a line that no one will cross. I can't remember seeing or even hearing about any U.S. newspaper running the wire shot of Nicole Simpson lying dead in a pool of blood.

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This picture went beyond the need to inform and added little to the fact that she had been murdered in a horrific fashion. Even though it illustrated a national (even international) story, editors were skeptical about the merits of running this picture.

I would guess that those who briefly considered running the picture discussed going black and white and perhaps running it inside, but in the end decided that it was not an image that would meet their criteria for landing in print.

Considering what has just happened in New York and Washington, D.C., it appears that our individual checks and balances are very active and in place. We are being judicious in our selections, and we are discussing in our newsrooms the actual merits of each picture. That is the way it should be.

pnesbitt@verizon.net