By Christine Haughney
The New York Times
Even for a society comfortable with blood and gore in its movies and video games, the bombings at the Boston Marathon have sparked a new debate among news organizations about when images are too gruesome to display.
The biggest controversy brewed around The Daily News of New York, which covered up a bloody wound on a victim’s leg in the photograph it ran on its front page on Tuesday.
As photojournalists on blogs and Facebook discussed how changing these photographs violated their standards, the paper’s spokesman issued a statement on Wednesday defending its decision. It said “the rest of the media should have been as sensitive as The Daily News.” The photograph was first noted by Charles Apple, an editor with The Orange County Register in California.
The Atlantic also received complaints from readers for posting on its Web site a photograph of a marathon observer, Jeff Bauman, showing bloody injuries that most news organizations chose to crop. Some organizations that used it also included a note that read “Warning: This image may contain graphic or objectionable content.”
About 15 minutes after posting the image, The Atlantic blurred Mr. Bauman’s face, while keeping the troubling parts of the photograph of his limbs in the shot. Bob Cohn, digital editor for The Atlantic, said that it chose to publish an original photograph over the cropped version other outlets published because it seemed more authentic. The Associated Press provided both versions.
Also: Napolitano pleads for patience, says Boston probe is not an ‘NCIS’ episode
