New York Post criticised over subway death photo.

Run_to_da_hills

A New York Post front page photo depicts a man about to be killed by a fast approaching subway train has generated fury across the United States.

Ki Suk Han pas pushed off the platform at Manhattan’s 49th Street subway station in New York. Onlookers including one of Rupert Murdocks Journalists kept taking pictures of the 58-year-old as the train approached in full view of the crowd.

Yesterday Rupert Murdoch’s sensationalist rag flaunted the shocking front page picture with the headline "Pushed on the subway tracks this man is about to die.... DOOMED".

NY Post report.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20599224

IRE60

Yea- I normally have a high tolerance/threshold for photo journalism - but, I think that crossed even my thick skinned line - both in terms of the actual use to tout papers, but the headline is fairly rank as well.

ekevosu

It's an utterly depressing story. A crowd that doesn't try and pull him up but eurher watch or run away. A photographer that claims his flash was just for the train driver to get his attention, not to take photos. Photos which he says he didn't sell as that would be morbid. He licenced them. It's not okay to publish this photo in my opinion for many reasons.

KKkitty

ekevosu wrote: »

It's an utterly depressing story. A crowd that doesn't try and pull him up but eurher watch or run away. A photographer that claims his flash was just for the train driver to get his attention, not to take photos. Photos which he says he didn't sell as that would be morbid. He licenced them. It's not okay to publish this photo in my opinion for many reasons.

Money obviously meant a whole lot more than a human life in this case. I've seen the photo and any editor should have had more sense than to run it as a story. Not buying the flash story either. The poor man didn't stand a chance. R.I.P.

jacool

They have made an arrest now - that's something I suppose.

coylemj

How is the train driver supposed to see the guy down on the track when a photographer standing on the platform lets off his flash straight into the driver's direction?

Another low for Rupert Murdoch and his rags.

SiegfriedsMum

KKkitty wrote: »

I've seen the photo and any editor should have had more sense than to run it as a story. .

And yet by running the story he has got amazing publicity for his newspaper.

In this new media age where newspapers are becoming less and less relevant, they will have to keep doing more and more sensational things to try to keep their publication awareness as high as they can as all newspapers jostle for a shrinking market.

coylemj

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

And yet by running the story he has got amazing publicity for his newspaper.

In this new media age where newspapers are becoming less and less relevant, they will have to keep doing more and more sensational things to try to keep their publication awareness as high as they can as all newspapers jostle for a shrinking market.

Just getting 'amazing publicity' is no justification for publishing this photo. You don't appear to recognize any lower limits of taste and you seem to be saying that as long as the publisher gets 'publicity' for doing it, it's ok.

There has to be a bar below which ethics and plain human decency say you can't go, publishing that photo was well below the bar.

KKkitty

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

And yet by running the story he has got amazing publicity for his newspaper.

In this new media age where newspapers are becoming less and less relevant, they will have to keep doing more and more sensational things to try to keep their publication awareness as high as they can as all newspapers jostle for a shrinking market.

In this case it was morally wrong for the editor to allow this picture on the front page. I can only presume children have seen it also and how do their parents explain the cost of a human life was worth less than the money made from the story. If I was that editor I would have put a headline and nothing else bar a few words to draw the readers in and had the photo inside the paper instead.

SiegfriedsMum

coylemj wrote: »

Just getting 'amazing publicity' is no justification for publishing this photo. You don't appear to recognize any lower limits of taste and you seem to be saying that as long as the publisher gets 'publicity' for doing it, it's ok.

There has to be a bar below which ethics and plain human decency say you can't go, publishing that photo was well below the bar.

Perhaps you confuse analysis with justification. At no time have I said publishing this picture was "ok", or otherwise.

KKkitty wrote: »

In this case it was morally wrong for the editor to allow this picture on the front page. I can only presume children have seen it also and how do their parents explain the cost of a human life was worth less than the money made from the story.

Morality is, of course, a matter for each of us, as individuals. It might be thought unwise to expect a newspaper to adopt ones own particular set of moral values. History is littered with newspapers which have told lies and have shown their unscrupulous natures, and to expect them to suddenly become moral institutions seems a hope too far.

As for the “what about the children” argument, my view is that if parents try to explain the story in terms that the cost of a human life being worth less than the money made from the story, then that’s the wrong lesson to be learnt, or taught. In any case, “what about the children” being unsupervised on the interweb?, and in so many other areas. In my experience, children are much more accepting and robust that adults sometime realise.

rockonollie

I wouldn't for a second believe the photographers story that he was only trying to get the drivers attention......if that was the case, he never would have sent the photo to the paper.

periodictable

ekevosu wrote: »

It's an utterly depressing story. A crowd that doesn't try and pull him up but eurher watch or run away. A photographer that claims his flash was just for the train driver to get his attention, not to take photos. Photos which he says he didn't sell as that would be morbid. He licenced them. It's not okay to publish this photo in my opinion for many reasons.

Can you imagine trying to pull an adult male off the subway tracks, up a vertical distance of almost 4 feet, with nothing to brace the victim on the side-(there's a crawl space of about 2 feet)?
I've seen one guy fall onto the tracks in the past- there was no oncoming train and people managed to pull him up, and it took the best part of a minute.
What surprises me is how he did not attempt to get over the third rail between tracks where he would have been safe.
If you use the NY subway, and have any awareness, you should have at least have mentally rehearsed for such an eventuality,plan to either get over the tracks to a central area of squeeze yourself into the space under the platform. I'm guessing it was a case of the train already entering the station, plus possible injury and panic. Poor guy.

anncoates

Ran toward the train using his flash to get the driver's attention eh?

LOL.

Scum.

Dude111

ekevosu wrote:

It's an utterly depressing story. A crowd that doesn't try and pull him up but eurher watch or run away. A photographer that claims his flash was just for the train driver to get his attention, not to take photos.

Ya right if it wasnt,THAT PHOTO WOULDNT HAVE BEEN MADE PUBLIC!!!

I really hate what this country has become,its been destroyed.... NO WONDER THE WORLD HATES THE USA!!!! -- They have every reason to!