Other campus: ‘Miami Herald’ irresponsibly published graphic photo

By Daily Utah Chronicle

(CSTV U-WIRE) SALT LAKE CITY – On July 27, former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele, who was facing multiple charges of fraud and money laundering, walked into the lobby of The Miami Herald and shot himself in the head.

The next day, The Miami Herald ran a graphic picture of Teele’s corpse on its front page and Web site.

The decision to publish these pictures was incredibly tasteless, journalistically irresponsible and self-serving.

What value could this possibly have served to its community? Though Teele was a former City Commissioner and was facing several criminal charges, is his death so newsworthy that it warranted the publication of this photo?

Some would argue that newspapers publish graphic photos all the time-specifically, photos of warfare.

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Yet photos of soldiers and civilians in Iraq help portray conflict to readers in a way that the written word could never encompass-and events in places such as Iraq affect all of us, elevating their level of newsworthiness.

The death of Arthur Teele directly affects only his family members-and now thanks to The Miami Herald, their personal tragedy is being splashed all over the country.

Journalists have a responsibility to accurately report the news, and the news of a legally troubled former city commissioner’s suicide would be considered newsworthy.

But The Miami Herald took its reporting one step too far, and in the process, violated the public trust.

Teele’s suicide could have been accurately reported without publishing such a graphic photo of the body. The Miami Herald simply took the easy way out by literally following the old adage, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

The Miami Herald’s ethics guidelines state that editing decisions can be made regarding “distasteful or disturbing photographs dealing with violence, war and social norms or etiquette,” and this is certainly a case in which such an editing decision would have been appropriate.

The guidelines further acknowledge that the “loss of credibility after a breach of photojournalism ethics is arguably unrecoverable.” Yet the chance to take advantage of a tragedy apparently proved too tempting in this instance.

The Miami Herald was simply being opportunistic when it published the photo of Teele’s body. The man committed suicide in their lobby, and The Herald staff chose to sensationalize his death to their own advantage.

Staff Editorial

Daily Utah Chronicle (U. Utah)