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The Snuff Times

28 comments on The Snuff Times

The Snuff Times

: I found myself shocked by the number of dead people pictured in today’s New York Times.

Page A1: A photo of a man carrying a dead child the age of my own child.

Page A10: A photo of a dozen corpses of people killed in Gaza, shrouded with their faces staring out.

Page A13: A photo of Iraqi men carrying the bodies of the dead from “an attack by American forces” off a truck.

Page E 3: A photo of a dead Confederate soldier under the infamous photo of the leashed prisoner at Abu Ghraib.

In my time as an editor, we thought long and hard before putting a picture of a corpse in the newspaper — not so much to protect the audience from an indelicate image but to respect the dead and not to exploit their image.

As we’ve discused here lately, we don’t need editors protecting us from news; that’s not the issue. But as we’ve also discussed here, when you choose to use — or not use — photos such as these, you are necessarily making a political decision. And using images of dead children on your front page is not something that should ever be done lightly. So is The Times just as quick to run pictures of the dead killed by Palestinians as Israelis, by Iraqi terrorists as American soldiers?

: UPDATE: Meanwhile, the editors of the Lowell Sun run a picture of two men kissing on the day gay marriage is legalized in Mass. — smacks of news to me — and get a few dozen complaints and so now they act as if this was a shocking mistake and they’ve learned a lesson.

Wonder how many pix of dead bodies they’ve run.

28 responses to “The Snuff Times”

  1. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    In my time as an editor, we thought long and hard before putting a picture of a corpse in the newspaper — not so much to protect the audience from an indelicate image but to respect the dead and not to exploit their image.
    It seems that cultural shift has taken place in that images of anonymous, non-American corpses have become acceptable.
    So is The Times just as quick to run pictures of the dead killed by Palestinians as Israelis, by Iraqi terrorists as American soldiers?
    An important question, worthy of a content-analysis of the NYT.

  2. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    The NYTimes doesn’t even pretend to be objective or neutral anymore – we are on our way to a Euro-style press.

  3. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    Paladin – is that necessarily a bad thing? Perhaps we would be better served (and informed) if our various news outlets made their political biases more apparent, rather than hiding them in some unreachable standard of “neutrality” and “objectivity.”

  4. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Did the NYTimes publish any of the stills from the Nick Berg murder?
    If not, could this double-standard be just another reason why the readership of the paper of record is diminishing!

  5. button Avatar
    button

    They’re not called corpses anymore, Jeff. For what it’s worth, they’re called cadavers now.
    When they changed the terminology, they seemed to have changed the way they treat them.

  6. Peter Shea Avatar
    Peter Shea

    The NY Times article on the “wedding bombing” merely gives us the time and place as “Wednesday evening, about 15 miles from the Syrian border and southwest of the town of Qusaiba.” The Times omits that the US attack occurred around 2:45 or 3:00 am at a location 250 miles from “official witnesses” Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jbouri and Dr. Salah al-Ani — facts that seem, to me at least, to butress the US military’s version of the events and discredit the “wedding bombing” assertion and the dead body photos on A13. Why are bodies transported such a distance and yet we have no photos of the injured or any reports of the injured arriving in Ramadi?
    Could it be that the Times is spinning stories and photos to question the morality of what the US is doing in Iraq and sap Americans’ will to support our efforts there? I dare say that the recent “torture, torture, torture” drumbeat at the Times has now officially been replaced with a “death, death, death” drumbeat as of today and will expect now to see more of these one-sided war images over the coming weeks. One of the blogosphere’s media critics (forgive my feeble recollection as to who — Belmont Club? Strategy Page? Winds of Change?) predicted back in February or earlier that mainstream media would shift from an obsession with American military casualties after US casualty rates declined to an obsession with Iraqi civilian casualties with some US atrocities thrown in for good measure as a deliberate attempt to sap President Bush’s support as the election nears. We now seem to be entering that phase of war coverage.

  7. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    NYTimes has long since given up any pretense of being neutral. They are a biased publication. Only folks in the media and along the East Coast take them seriously
    Sadly, they have led the parade of other “news” organizations down the path of mediocrity. That’s why the internet news/blogs are growing as sources. The public craves information and the raw and not-quite-ready has a greater ring of truth than the slick-polished-Truth-because-we-say-so who have lied to us before.
    How many lies does a newspaper get before they are irrelevant? How many times can the presentation and reporting be biased before they are no longer a mass publication but merely a house organ?
    These and many more questions will be answered soon. Nothing exceeds like excess.

  8. Corey Avatar
    Corey

    Infotainment. That is the best catch-phrase I’ve heard in a long time. It seems the major news outlets have become more concerned with entertaining people than informing them. They seem more focused on simply catching peoples’ attention than delivering well-thought out and accurate news stories. And of course dead bodies (cadavers) will draw more attention. Not necessarily for the story behind the death, but because of the morbid curiosity that is running rampant in this country.
    “…but to respect the dead and not to exploit their image. ”
    Exactly. I feel that the overuse of these types of pictures is an affront to those who have died and their families and friends. It seems as though no consideration is given to the possibility that showing a cadaver could be disrespectful. As long as it sells newspapers…
    “So is The Times just as quick to run pictures of the dead killed by Palestinians as Israelis, by Iraqi terrorists as American soldiers?”
    What makes a good story these days? Anything that makes the Bush administration look bad. Not that I am insinuating that the media is putting a hard spin on what they are reporting…
    Conservative media my arse.

  9. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    Michael Z – I did not mean to imply that a Euro-style press was a bad thing – in fact, dropping the canard of objectivity would be more honest and more useful – a good thing!

  10. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    First you complain that newspapers sanitized the images of the beheading of Nick Berg, and now you bitch that there are too many images of dead people of the NYTimes. Which is it, Jeffo? What a partisan hack — when it suits your partisan ways you want more violent images, but when it hurts your cause you want fewer.

  11. daudder Avatar
    daudder

    War is hell. We need to see hell, so as to go to war as only a last resort. War will be the last thing many of those who are touched by war ever experience.

  12. Angelos Avatar
    Angelos

    I think, Paladin and Mike Zimmer, that we’re already there with the party-papers, and that’s the problem, at least for the liberals.
    Conservatives have a consistent message, delivered in mantra-like fashion, in lockstep behind Moron Jr. America good, liberal bad, terror terror terror, evildoers. America good, liberal bad, terror terror terror, evildoers. Madman madman madman. Like them or not, you have to admit it works. It works for them, when the truth doesn’t.
    Liberals, on the other hand keep stringing themselves up, because they’re not attacking the Republican nearly enough, THEY’RE attacking America! Instead of focusing in the lies and failures of GWB & The NeoCons, they’re saying AMERICA is a failure, because we photograph naked Iraqis and we bomb weddings (as Peter Shea pointed out so well above). Who wants to vote for that crap? Kerry should ask them to tone it down, they make liberals look bad.
    Having lived in Greece for 10 years, with a father who bought both the Socialist and Democratic papers, I got used to filtering through the politics to find the actual news item. You know, instead of “John Smith, who is a lying thieving Communist who would kill his mother for a vote, did this”, your learn how to read “John Smith did this.”
    I much preferred, though, when I moved back to the US in ’87, reading more “straight” news. Those days are gone though.
    Now I have to buy my liberal local paper, and the reactionary WSJ, because otherwise I won’t get both sides.

  13. Faramin Avatar
    Faramin

    First I was surprised reading your post. I thought you had gained some honesty. I thought, the fact that those children were victimized had made you upset.
    I read more and I noticed that no, you are the same, same person who seriously lacks honesty and integrity.

  14. sbw Avatar
    sbw

    I posted this elsewhere, forgive me, but it is equally germane here, regarding newspapers as a “push” medium. We published this letter on our Letters to the Editor page today:
    “I am eight years old and I love to read the paper.
    “I was very upset when I saw the paper and the picture from Iraq with the naked man in the jail on the front page of your paper. I don’t think kids should have to see this.
    “I hope your paper never prints a picture like that again.”

  15. Anti-Idiot Avatar
    Anti-Idiot

    Nicholas Berg, who’s that?

  16. Angelos Avatar
    Angelos

    We already have marketers and stock-watchers and sensitivity police dictating what our papers print. I hope we don’t let 8-year olds into the mix.
    Contrary to what politicians will tell you in an election year, it’s not “all about the children”. It’s about the adults who pay the bill. Children will have their time soon enough.

  17. old gal Avatar
    old gal

    I’m over 60. I’ve never known any form of media to be unbiased. Whether printed word, radio, or T.V.—-can you tell me when that occured?

  18. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Perhaps we would be better served (and informed) if our various news outlets made their political biases more apparent……..
    Paladin, I have no problem with a paper being upfront with their political leaning, but, the NYT’s still regards itself as the “paper of record”…meaning a newspaper that is neutral politically, presenting unbiased solid facts in its reporting that one could refer to on that premise. Sadly, the NYT’s once fit that definition.
    The NYT’s has metastiscized it’s editorial page into every page to the point that it can no longer be trusted. Morphing into a European tabloid brings the NYT’s no honor.
    If all of our major papers can’t be trusted because of bias in everything they report, just where the hell do we get facts? Facts being integral to operating as a democracy as informed voters.

  19. Cheese Avatar
    Cheese

    For those who can see through the Times’ transparent bias, why do you think you are so much smarter than your fellow Americans?

  20. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    Not smarter. Went to different skools, lernt different stuff. Read different stuff, think different thoughts. Do not accept poundage (verbiage) as equal to wisdom. Lernt to know when I wuz bee-in lyed to.
    How do you know you are being lied to?
    How do you feel?
    Why do you continue to trust a liar?
    If “everybody” trusts someone but you don’t are you smarter or dumber than they are?

  21. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Angelos:
    …..”Now I have to buy my liberal local paper, and the reactionary WSJ”………are you smart enough to see the irony of your words?
    I think a career at the NYT’s awaits you. You wouldn’t know non-biased journalism if it bit you. Your mind doesn’t even practice it when thinking.

  22. Helen Avatar
    Helen

    Lots of dead pix.
    No Nick Berg.
    That says it all.

  23. bicyclemark Avatar
    bicyclemark

    When asked how things in the newsroom are going, a nytimes reporter replied “Things are pretty dead around here.”
    —Hiyoooooo

  24. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Sorry, I should have directed my comments about the NYT’s bias to Michael Zimmer, not Paladin, who mused that bias in a newspaper isn’t such a bad thing and should be accommodated as long as it’s more transparent. Why? There aren’t enough political hacks to go around?
    I’ll repeat again, that’s fine if you don’t pretend to be a paper of record like the NYT’s. And the public would be better served by a paper of pure factual reporting without the editorial page seeping into the first page.

  25. David Crisp Avatar
    David Crisp

    Nobody seems to have mentioned an obvious element of news judgment: Most newspapers (I can’t speak for the Times, which I rarely read) are much more willing to print pictures of dead people who live far away. It has to do with reader sensibilities, not international politics. Print a picture of a dead local, and the phones ring for days. Print a picture of a faraway person doing foreign-looking things, and you rarely hear a complaint.
    I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s been true everywhere I have worked. In this case, Berg was a “local man,” and local sensitivites applied.
    Not everything can be explained by liberal bias, folks; the world is considerably more complicated and interesting than that.

  26. Angelos Avatar
    Angelos

    Oncecent, great post! I express a feeling, a problem I have with the media, and how I attempt to solve the problem. You’re incapable of composing an actual opinion, so you insult mine.
    The great thing about the WSJ is the willingness to slam any and all politicians, of all stripes. If you’re an idiot or a crook (all but maybe 5 politicians), you’ll find your bull in the WSJ, on the cover or in the op-eds.
    The other area I applaud the WSJ is their perseverence. When something is truly wrong, and I mean no-doubt-about-it party-affiliations-be-damned WRONG, they will keep hammering the story home until people wake up. Their consistent hectoring of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may finally produce some results. Their untiring support for Gerald Amirault (especially from Dorothy Rabinowitz, who wrote a couple books and countless articles exposing the travesty that was the day care “abuse” miscarriages of justice), finally got him out of jail after 18 years of unjust imprisonment.
    THOSE are the things I want from a newspaper. Not the same old AP sories I’ve already seen online, plus some stories cleared by Bush’s or Kerry’s flaks.
    But yes, I think the WSJ is reacionary in many ways. Their positions on the environment are absolutely ridiculous. It seems they get there by seeing what the hard-core greens do, and then doing the exact opposite. That pretty much defines reactionary. So now you have two ridiculous positions, and nothing smart in the middle.
    I also can’t understand why they give GWB as much of a pass as they do. They actually consider him a leader. That f-ing simpleton couldn’t lead a baby to a nipple. Does anyone look at that simian visage, with the perpetually confused look, and think to themselves, “I’ll follow him anywhere”?
    So that’s my problem with the WSJ – reactionary envronmental policy, too much of a free pass for Bush.
    My local paper, while not as bad as the NYT, definitely has shades of liberal slant in the editorial pieces. Fortunately, they run a healthy balance of syndicated opinion columns, from far left to centrist to far right, plus a couple libertarians. Great stuff, taken together.

  27. Sandy P Avatar
    Sandy P

    Did they ever run the picks of the Paleos using the heads of the dead Israelis as footballs?

  28. David Avatar
    David

    Last Sunday’s Times Week in Review had 3 photos of people killed atrociously, but all were from over 50 years ago. I wrote to the Public Editor pointing out that they were published despite being horrific, but the Nick Berg photo was not.
    I had previously written to him to complain about the lack of a Nick Berg murder photo. His assistant wrote back and indicated that the PE might be writing an article about this topic, either for his bi-weekly column or for his web log.
    You can contact him at public@nytimes.com