THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608310030
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: 79 lines
It was a tragedy when a 5-year-old boy drowned recently at a lake in East Ocean View. And some readers feel that The Pilot compounded the tragedy by printing a photo that showed the boy's arm coming out of the water while a diver held his submerged body.
Somehow, that sight was more heart-wrenching than seeing the entire body. At least a dozen readers - none of them relatives, to my knowledge - called or wrote to complain.
``I am enraged that The Pilot would show such an unforgivable lack of sensitivity and judgment to the boy's family,'' said Lisa M. Carr of Norfolk.
Janet Carter of Chesapeake, mother of a 3-year-old, found the photo disturbing as a parent. ``If that had been my child and I had seen that picture then,'' she said, ``I just don't know what I would have done.''
A Norfolk police officer was also shocked by this portrayal of a case that, he said, ``broke the hearts of many patrolmen and officers'' who worked on it.
The black-and-white photo appeared on Friday, Aug. 23, inside the MetroNews section with the continuation of the story.
A section-front color photo, showing the lake and a memorial to another recent drowning victim, also a young child, drew no objections. It was the four-column photo inside that upset readers.
This is not a new dilemma; the debate over the public's ``need to know'' vs. taste and sensitivity in photo selection has gone on forever. Last month, it was the topic of a column by Larry Nighswander, director of the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University.
Nighswander wrote about the difficulty of photographing tragedies - and the ``extenuating circumstances that blur the decision-making process.''
In the article, which ran in News Photographer magazine, he also conceded that ``rarely do newsroom editors agree on exactly what consitutes good taste in their own community.''
So it probably wouldn't surprise him to hear that Pilot editors, as well as readers, disagreed about the diver photo.
Bob Lynn, assistant managing editor for photos and usually a strong defender of photojournalism, felt it should not have run.
``You could make a case for bringing attention, in a shocking way, to the death of a child,'' said Lynn, if that helps alert parents to the dangers of a lake. Especially a lake that has claimed two young victims in the same month.
But, he added, ``you have to weigh that against the friends and relatives having to absorb that image and the pain that would bring to them.''
And in Lynn's opinion, that pain could weigh too heavily to justify running the photo.
Perry Parks, night metro editor, said there were discussions in the newsroom about the photo's ``shock value'' and possible offense to readers, and those considerations kept the photo off the section front.
But most everyone agreed, he said, that the photo should at least run inside. The reason: The picture showed what happened.
``Most of the readers who commented on the photo said they found it disturbing,'' said Parks. ``Thank God. If people aren't disturbed by the drowning of a 5-year-old boy, there is little hope for our society. And if we as a newspaper can't convey to our readers just how disturbing such a drowning is, then we're not doing our jobs.''
Mike Heffner, the intern photographer who took the controversial photo, said if there had been just one drowning in the lake, he wouldn't have submitted the negative. But with two drownings in two weeks, he felt the photo had a strong message.
Similar sentiments were voiced by B-Cat Graham, a Norfolk reader and frequent newspaper critic. ``We've watched a couple of kids drown in there and it's a darn tragedy,'' said Graham, who lives nearby on his boat.
Graham said he disagreed with a letter to the editor earlier in the week that condemned the photo.
``The community is grieving,'' he said, ``and it's a sad thing and we're all sharing it. . . This is not sensationalism or anything like that. This is just the news and this is just what happens.''
My own thoughts: I would have opted, reluctantly, to run the photo - preferably after contacting a family member to see how troubling it might be to them.
The photo was indeed painful. But journalism often is, and that photo left a stark, almost indelible, message about the dangers of our many waterways.
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB