New York Post's Subway Death Photo: Was It Ethical Photojournalism?

[imnotasquirrel]

When a news photographer witnesses a tragedy in the making, is his obligation to intervene or to document it?

That question has cropped up anew following the New York Post’s publication, on its front page, of a photo taken moments after a man was pushed onto subway tracks, and moments before he was hit and killed by an oncoming train.

Comments

[squeeful]

I am side-eying the idea that the photographer was obligated to help, but no one is berating the other bystanders for the same.

[lil_insanity]

Agreed. In an emergency, I don't think any one person* is more or less obligated to help than another person.

*excluding people trained for that kind of thing- EMTs, police officers, etc, obviously they're obligated to do what they can

[lady_borg]

MTE

[kaelstra]

I think it's the instinct to blame the most visible person. 'The cameraman was obviously "there", so why didn't he help?' sort of thing. I don't agree with it, hell, the cameraman may have been really far down the walkway when he got the picture. Pictures can be deceptive; they can be zoomed in really close, and make it look like the camera was mere feet away, instead of several yards, for example.

[effervescent]

Idk, between a person standing frozen in shock and a person whipping out a camera, I'm going to side-eye the person with the camera more than the others.

That said, we don't know what the situation was or whether this guy was telling the truth, so... :/ Yeah. But that's where stuff like the bystander effect kicks in - the more people around, the more likely it is that nobody will help because they all think someone else will.

[flyingwild]

If there wasn't time to react and grab the guy, why would there be time to pull out a camera, turn it on and set it up, and start snapping pictures?

Far more likely it was in his hand already.

[bestdaywelived]

No one had an obligation to help, but I think the photo was in poor taste.

[anjak_j]

Agreed.