For the last 24 hours, across the nation and across the world, people encountered gruesome photographic images from Fallujah, Iraq. Editors -- across media platforms -- had to decide which images to use, how to use them, where to play them, whether to use the images at all, to consider why they are being used, and whether or not to give readers and viewers an inside look at news judgment and ethical decision-making.
On the front page of The New York Times and the St. Petersburg Times, for example, viewers saw a version of this image, in which the charred and dismembered remains of American civilians are hung from a bridge, a group of Iraqis cheering in the foreground.
Today we want you to be the editor. Let's build a conversation about news judgment and journalism values around these three sets of questions: whether to run that image, how to run it, and the consequences of running it.
Whether to run it
If you were the news editor, would you publish some version of this image?
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If you ran it on the front page, where on the front page?
Would you run it inside?
What size would you run the image?
Would you explain why you were running the image or why not? In what form would you explain this?
Would you issue a warning about the graphic nature of the image?
Would you be tempted -– through cropping or digital manipulation –- to alter the image?
If you didn't run this image, how would you convey the news?
How would your media platform influence your news judgment? What are the differences, if any, if you were making these judgments for a daily newspaper, a news magazine, network television, cable television, a news website?
Consequences of your decision
Any decision you make will have consequences, some of which you can predict, some of which are unforeseen. Which of the following would concern you and why:
That publication of the image might turn public opinion for or against the war in Iraq?
That publication would somehow affect the safety of other civilians or soldiers in Iraq?
That publication or broadcast might offend readers or viewers?
That it might upset children or the sensitive or impressionable?
That it might hurt your credibility?
That it might open you to charges of sensationalism?
That your competition might make a different decision?
That you might be accused of a political bias in your coverage?
The Whole Truth Whether or not to run the image is a really tough question to answer. I am torn because on one hand I feel that the images are horrific and disturbing. On the other hand, though, doesn't the public have the right to know exactly what is going on, especially with...
