Man pushed onto NYC subway tracks (a question of journalistic ethics?)

In photojournalism, unfortunately, capturing the image for the world to see and become outraged over sometimes overrides the basic human instinct to spring to action. It's a horrifying, but very real and common truth. For people who spend their lives searching for just the right shot to make their career or change the world (for the idealists among us) by tugging on the heartstrings of millions, often that instinct isn't strong enough.

This short article is about a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist who received so much criticism over the winning photo that some say it destroyed his career and drove him to take his own life. In hindsight, I'm positive he realized he did not do right by humanity.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5241442

I did read in a book, btw, that the child was moved out of harm's way.

The issue here is not that this is happening, but that there's a market for it. Sensationalizing stories like this gets people's blood pumping, and unfortunately more people enjoy that than not. That's the reason people tie-up traffic to stare at a bad accident and make everyone late for work. I don't look, because anything I would see would only make my day worse. My heart can't take it. I can't reconcile these things in my mind. They leave me feeling unsettled and unsafe.

This really is heart-breaking.
 
Whenever I was in NY, I always worried about something like this happening. There is no safety for those subways, and someone could easily trip and fall as the crowds gather to get onto the next train.


The camera man might have been able to get the guy up before he was hit. If he had his camera out already, then he probably wouldn't of had time, but if he had to take it out as the guy was struggling to get up, then yeah he is a terrible person (assuming he is someone physically capable of moving fast and pulling the guy up). The only way to really get a good sense of his intentions would be to know how much get got for that photograph.

The problem with assisting people is that you can't get in trouble for not assisting (as far as I know), but if you assist and they don't like how it turns out, they can sue you.
 
People have a morbid curiosity with death and tragedy, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the media takes advantage of this. What I find more abhorrent is that many newspapers claim to be authentic sources of data when they're just as sensationalist as most tabloids. In a way they're worse since the tabloids admit what they are.
 
[video=youtube;KYlyb1Bx9Ic]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlyb1Bx9Ic[/video]
 
here's a clip from the documentary 'psywars' about how the militry industrial complex influence the news:

[video=youtube;6XvU_PNCjhE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XvU_PNCjhE[/video]
 
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