Cover of NY Post today. Classless? Reality journalism? Dramatic use of 1st Amend?

I've never had much use for the Post, but this is sick. The story is lurid enough; the photo is simply disgusting. It dehumanizes this guy to the point of making him nothing more than a prop.

 

on the other hand, the entire world and everything that happens in it is a collection of props for this sort of press. all this does is make that explicit by it's relatively explicit tastelessness.

 

Crazy! How no one on the editorial staff would consider the affect this would have on his kids? This will be the image they remember of their father no matter how many happy family photos they have.

As someone who relatively recently lost a spouse and had to explain to our kids what happened I could not imagine having to add this to the equation.

 

Not of all that matters..all that matters is the Post selling more papers. all in the quest for more money. Sad really.

 

You're not familiar with the New York Post, are you?

new york post - Google Search

 

Exactly, it got the intended result.

 

I think...

Hmm, it's the headline that really causes an issue. It's not so much the picture. I mean, c'mon. We look at pictures from WWI, WWII, Vietnam et al that are far more graphic and talk about how they captured a moment in time and then debate their place in history. If this picture had been used on an inside section at a smaller level with a caption about the events, rather than the glaring heavy font headline, we wouldn't be talking about it.

I watched an interview with the photographer today on the news and I'm ok with him. He was just snapping while trying to alert the driver. The editorial staff then took the pics, lightened them and doctored them and then they decided to use it along with the headline. They're the ones who seem to be callous and evil in this sense. In fact, the photographer claims that when the police went through the pics right after the event, they became frustrated because most of the pics were so dark you couldn't see anything. So yeah, I'm ok with that guy.

I'm not defending a news organization or media sect - I'm just saying that there are far worse pictures graphic wise that we seem to be ok with but this one coupled with this particular headline seems to be causing an uproar. It makes me scratch my head.

 

To be honest when I first saw the picture my thoughts were for his family and how I would react had that been a family member. There is no excuse for this, but then again there is no excuse for most of Murdoch's business ventures.

 

I admit I am not. I was hoping the reputation was exaggerated. Apparently not.

 

uh, werd. i am really not shocked to see this on the cover of the post.

 

I don't think the picture is a big deal, or some sort of stark evidence of humanity's inhumanity, or something. Clearly, the situation is tragic for everyone involved, but the article tells a pretty tragic story itself, and much more effectively than the picture. The picture doesn't tell you anything about the fact that the dead guy had a family, or that he'd fought with his wife the last time he saw her (how fucked up must she feel? or maybe not?), or that the the driver of the train was so shook that he needed a wheel chair and an oxygen mask to get out of the subway station. I think the picture is important, it makes the story real, something haunting, which it should be. What a horrible way to go. But I doubt that the Post had anything like this in mind when they chose to run the picture. I suspect they thought that it would move papers, and also that it would inspire a lot of people to turn up their noses at the Post while at the same time providing the Post with free publicity.

I don't know that I buy the photographer's story about trying to warn the driver. Seems convenient that his method of warning the driver also involved taking what he had to have known would be a set of pretty gripping pictures. I've walked around with a camera before, I know how motherfuckers think.

 

that's the standard dilemma of the war photographer--you are sitting behind a car watching a sniper kill everything that moves from x to y. some kid walks into the field of fire. if you yell something, the kid might live. if you don't you might get a great shot. which wins?

 

roachboy that is the dilemma, isn't it. Maybe that picture of the kid newly relieved of half of their head is the one that motivates a war-ending intervention. Or maybe that's something the photographer tells themselves while they wait for fate to compose their picture.

Here, though, not so much. What subway rider isn't intuitively aware of the momentum of approaching trains? I'd bet any attempts to stop the train were futile before anyone at the platform had a line of sight to the driver. Doesn't mean you don't do something. Engaging futility can feel better than giving in to it.

 

Probably increased their sales. Anymore I see this stuff and it's just a big meh, which is sad in and of itself. Papers down here always have accident and crime scene photos on the front page. The difference between that photo and any photo down here is they would have the after photo splashed on the cover here and no one would blink. Just nod and comment on how it was God's will. Why God spends his time deciding people should get drunk and ride scooters without helmets I have yet to figure it out.

This is what the world has come to, violence is everywhere and it's acceptable. I have a sister-in-law who was watching Spartacus, HBO?, and eating popcorn. Two guys, circled by screaming crowds, beat the living crap out of each other. As the scene became more and more violent with weapons being tossed in to the battling bloody two men my SIL eyes got wider and wider and the amount of popcorn making it into her mouth became less and less until one man smashed the others head with a large spiked mace looking thing. In the next scene a slave girl with one breast exposed appeared on screen and the TV went black. My SIL said "I'm not having any pornography in this house!" We had a short tense conversation about violence and nudity. My position being nudity was a natural thing while smashing another man head into pieces was rather obscene. Her basic response was "oh, you're one of those."

Yeah, I guess I am... one of those.

 

i had a conversation about this with a friend earlier.

apparently there was a carjcking in rio just before carnival this past year.

these people--no idea who--jacked a car at an intersection with a woman in it. along with her was a daughter in the front and a small child in the back.

the mother asked whether she could get her child from the back.

somehow, the kid ended up outside the car, dragged for a couple miles along the road and killed.

it was a media event.

two days later carnival happened on the same streets.

the idea is not only that the voyeurism of a photographer might lead him or her to trade a death for a good shot, but also that there's a generalized desensitization to violence. in the interest of selling shit, of course.

my friend asked: if people could see this and find it normal, how will the society ever change?

i had no answer.

do you?