Did Wednesday’s front-page photo of the swollen face of a 7-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet on the Fourth of July put a human face on the damage wrought by guns in Hartford? Or was publication of the photo inherently dehumanizing to the child and city residents most affected by violence?
Dozens of readers found the photo of Takira Gaston exploitative and intrusive. Others agreed with the newspaper’s decision to publish the photo at the top of Page 1 in hopes that readers and policy-makers would take action after seeing what a bullet could do to a little girl and her family on the Fourth of July.
“The way the whole picture is presented is just another negative image for the residents of Hartford, for the majority of the residents of Hartford who are black and Latino. I think The Courant has done a disservice to those citizens who are trying to be law-abiding in an urban center,” said Donarell Elder, a former Hartford resident now living in New Haven.
“We’re all very aware of what that city is like and someone should do something about it, but certainly not our early-morning readers,” said Joyce Widholm of Glastonbury.
Others lauded the newspaper for publishing the disturbing photo. “It’s very important that people know the violence that occurs in Hartford,” said John Millane of Canton. “Not only was it done in good taste, but it was done for a reason.”
Well before Takira was shot, Courant editors were struggling with how to report what they thought was an epidemic of shootings in Hartford, probably the result of territorial warfare over the sale of illegal drugs.
The first stories had been assigned before Takira was struck as she was riding her scooter on the sidewalk during a family picnic.
Editors, appalled by the crime, thought that telling her story could help communicate the effects of gun violence and motivate residents and policy-makers to act.
“It often takes the brutal assault on a child who is indisputably innocent to affect people, to have an impact on their emotions,” said Deputy Managing Editor Barbara T. Roessner. “It’s too bad that we in the media and the public stay brutally numb until that occurs.”
Reporter Tina A. Brown and, later, photographer Patrick Raycraft, were assigned and began getting to know Takira’s family. The pair finally visited the girl and her aunt, who is raising her, in the hospital on Tuesday.
Raycraft stood quietly in a corner, without unpacking his cameras, until the girl and her aunt became comfortable and agreed to allow him to take photographs.
Looking at his film that night, Raycraft’s editors were drawn to the close-up image of the girl with her breathing tube and swollen eye and lips. Top editors looked at the photo and agreed that the picture should run large at the top of the front page where it would have maximum emotional impact.
“Is this exploitative or is this the jarring evidence that we all need to fix the problems in the neighborhood? That’s the equation that we wrestled with,” said Editor Brian Toolan.
He knew that the girl’s circumstances and race could lead to accusations that the newspaper is taking advantage of her, but, said Toolan, “Do you choose not to run the photo of a life that’s been turned upside down because she is African American?”
It’s hard to know when an article or photograph, intended to humanize its subject, instead consumes and objectifies a life.
Journalism, by its nature, can be exploitative and dehumanizing. A writer or photographer encounters a person or situation and re-creates it according to his or her perception of reality. Readers receive the coverage through the prism of their own emotions and experience. Those emotions and experiences are affected by previous portrayals of people and places.
Did the photo humanize or dehumanize Takira Gaston?
Part of the answer depends on your own reaction to the photo and whether The Courant treats her as a symbol or the individual hurt child that she is in the days to come. So far, the community has rallied to her support.
