The atmosphere in The Palm Beach Post newsroom Tuesday was no different than it was elsewhere in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. Staffers were trying to contact people by telephone while watching on TV as the assaults on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon unfolded. “People were trying to be professional and dispassionate and get a good job done,” said Editor Edward Sears. “But a horror like this quickly erodes any air of business as usual.”
The business of hearing and responding to readers continues, however, and while the reality of the tragedy still had not fully sunk in for me when I arrived in the office the morning after, Reader Advocate Mike Clark of The Florida Times-Union already was fielding critical calls. On the back page of its second A section, his paper had run a large color photo of a man falling from one of the towers. He asked fellow news ombudsmen in an e-mail query whether any of our papers had run such a photo. When I called to tell him of Post editors’ handling of the Associated Press photo, however, I had not yet received the e-mail from Cabot Lord of Stuart. “I cannot believe that The Post printed the picture of the man jumping from a window of the Trade Center,” Mr. Lord wrote. “This man has a family and loved ones. I am canceling my subscription to your paper, as this is shock journalism and I do not want to support it.”
Managing Editor John Bartosek, who supervises the newsroom, said editors “all agreed the photo of a person falling from the building was horrific. It showed a part of the tragedy mentioned by many witnesses and in several of the stories. We ran it without sensationalizing, on an inside page, not on a section front. I think most of our readers wanted to see all aspects of the story, to fully understand the enormity of the news. We don’t publish many photos like that. As the story continues to develop, we’ll report it fully and compassionately.”
I had told my Jacksonville colleague that I expected calls from readers who did not like the photo – though as I write Wednesday afternoon, only one has reached my desk. In my view, editors made the correct call in including the picture, and handled it tastefully.
I also recognize that readers sometimes take out their rage on the messenger. As Mr. Sears said, however, “This is a horrifying, horrifying story, and the coverage of the story is going to be reflecting just how horrible.” We may not like images of people falling from buildings, but as the seriousness of this tragedy sinks in, there will be more editing decisions. Imagine for example, the coverage when rescue workers get to all those bodies buried beneath the untold millions of tons of rubble piled in New York’s streets. Even children will be curious to know the reality of what will happen.
For what it’s worth, almost all the newspapers I got my hands on ran some variation of the photo on an inside page, including The New York Times, the New York Post and South Florida’s two other major dailies. USA Today did not. Elsewhere, The San Diego Union Tribune ran the photo and got complaints from readers; The Sacramento Bee also ran it, and its ombudsman had received no complaints.
“Where are the Florida Lottery numbers?” as one caller asked, was the only other problem I heard. They were on Page 15A in my edition, the only non-attack page in the A section, as editors concentrated the most important news of the day first in the section.
I tried to convince a reader — and myself — that we weren’t seeing what was on Page One Monday, but it turns out that editors made a bad call with a photo that came in on deadline and was rushed into the paper. That Tennessee Titans fan wearing a No. 22 jersey wasn’t putting his whole fist forward but was making an obscene gesture, as a Miami Dolphins receiver celebrated a touchdown.
