Thursday, January 13, 2011

Some responses to the Toronto Star Public Editor survey

I've been doing the Toronto Star Public Editor survey, and for a couple of questions my answers go far beyond the scope of the yes/no provided.

10. In preparation for the G20 summit in Toronto, the Star produces a series of profiles and “Portraits of Leaders.” Do you publish this photo of U.S. President Barack Obama taken in 1980 when he was a college student in Los Angeles?


The issue is not this one photo itself, the issue is the broader context of the series as a whole. All the other photos in the series are recent, if not current. They were all taken at times when the subjects either were or could reasonably predict that they might soon be leaders of countries. It's not fair to pick on only one of the subjects by publishing a picture of him being goofy 30 years ago. Either use current photos for all, or old photos for all, or at the very least old photos for a reasonable selection.

12. A judge releases graphic photos shown in open court of convicted “sadosexual serial killer” Russell Williams. Do you publish this disturbing photo on Page 1 alongside a photo of Williams in full military uniform?


If you didn't want to click on the "graphic photos" link, it's a photo of Williams wearing lingerie belonging to one of his victims.

It's very easy to reduce this question to "Is a picture of a hairy man in pink panties suitable for a family newspaper?" But that's missing the point. The point is that Williams is a murderer.

A picture of a hairy main in pink panties is shocking, memorable, and distracting. And so, our first thought when we hear the name Russell Williams is of a hairy main in pink panties. But being a hairy man in pink panties is a far lesser sin than murder (and, frankly, if he'd man up and buy his own panties it wouldn't be a sin at all!) So this results in Williams being thought of general public sentiment as something far better than he actually is.

Another factor sometimes mentioned in deciding whether to print this picture is the "Mommy, what's that?" factor. In other words, it's really awkward for parents to have to explain to their kids what that man's doing wearing pink panties. There are arguments for and against using this when deciding whether something is appropriate for a newspaper, but, regardless, we have to think not just of the kid's question but of the parent's answer. In this particular case, it would be very very easy for a parent caught off-guard to answer "He's a bad man." And he is a bad man. That's why he's in the newspaper. In fact, the picture of him wearing the pink panties is a picture of him in the process of being a bad man - not because he's wearing panties, but because he's wearing someone else's panties without her permission. Even grown adults who are unfamiliar with the circumstances under which a man might harmlessly wear panties and repulsed by the idea of a man wearing panties are also likely to come away with the impression that panty-wearing = bad man. A causal relationship rather than a single instance of correlation.

So not only does this picture give an initial, shocking, and memorable impression that Williams is a mere panty-wearer as opposed to a murderer, it also helps promote or reinforce the idea that panty-wearing is a sign, cause, or symptom of being a bad man. It makes Williams look less bad while making innocent panty-wearing men look more bad.

This story received quite a lot of column-inches (if I remember correctly, it had a full double-page inside spread on more than one day), so I wouldn't necessarily object to them printing this picture, alongside others, on an inside page. However, out of respect for the seriousness of murder, it doesn't belong on the front page above the fold catching the eye of everyone who walks past a newsstand. They need to give people a chance to think "OMG, murder!" before they get distracted by the things like whether he went to the trouble of tucking or just has a very small penis.

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