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February 18, 1998 Newsroom Decisions, Dilemmas and Cut Lines I recently covered a breaking news story where there was initially some indication of foul play. I stood outside with the reporter as police officers, detectives and eventually the commanding officer of the local precinct made their way inside a building where a man had hanged himself in the hallway outside his apartment. With all the brass inside, there was some speculation that it wasn't "just" a suicide. Eventually, though, after waiting for over two hours for the medical examiner, and for the body to be removed, that's "all" it turned out to be, a private tragedy turned public that I had to cover "just in case". Out of respect for the family, we never ran a picture and didn't cover it in our Police Beat column, though similar stories have made their way to that column before. Although I had no say in whether or not the story would run, I personally agreed with the editor's decision not to run it. However, this brings to mind another story I covered last year, highlighting the way a cut line can alter perception of a story, or of a person in that story, or display an insensitivity to the people we're writing about.
She consented, but quickly added, after I'd already snapped a few frames with my wide angle lens, including her in the picture: "Oh, not with me in the picture." I scanned the picture that told the story, but was then faced with the dilemma of whether to just hand it in without explanation. I approached my publisher, who has the last word on these things, and he agreed with me that I ought to go and talk to her. I went back to her apartment and told her that we would like to publish a picture with her in it. She was in tears, telling me how humiliated she was because she's been trying to get the superintendent to do something about her bug problem for years. I told her that it was important for people to know how dangerous these devices were and that the photograph was all the more powerful with her in it, but that we would not run it without her permission. She agreed and the picture, which I had scanned with the cut line "INSECTICIDE EXPLOSION," ran instead with a caption that read: "ROACH BOMB EXPLODES". I subsequently had a discussion with the editor, who defended his use of the word "roach" as opposed to the word "Insecticide." My editor's position was: "Well, WASN'T it???" While purely a question of semantics, I felt strongly that the use of that one word probably further embarrassed an already humiliated woman, who had agreed to allow her picture to be used for the good of the story. It is also my belief that we further convinced another person that journalists will do or use anything simply to tell a story, without regard for the subject. Perhaps I'm guilty of that too. Susan B. Markisz February 18, 1998
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Susan
Markisz
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
