Thai Rath, a newspaper in Thailand, has published a front-page photo of what it says is David Carradine’s body hanging by ropes in a hotel closet. The actor was found dead in a Bangkok hotel last week.
No doubt, the grisly photo, as well as an autopsy photo that’s been surfacing across the Web, will generate lots of traffic.
But they’re not news.
It’s right to wonder whether they’re authentic, but even if they are, I can’t imagine a legitimate reason to publish them.
ABCNews.com reported that Carradine’s death could have been the result of a homicide. Some tabloids are saying the “Kung Fu” actor’s death may be linked to some sort of Kung Fu sect. The feeding frenzy is just beginning.
The Associated Press reported:
“The paper did not indicate the source of the image, but Thai police said they believed it was a picture of Carradine’s body taken by a forensics team.”
You can imagine the heartbreak Carradine’s family is experiencing. The family’s attorney, who is threatening legal action for any U.S.-based publication that runs the photos, made news this week when he said the family wants private forensic experts to investigate the actor’s death. Reportedly, there will be a second autopsy. Still, that does not make the death photos newsworthy.
Freelance journalist John Le Fevre, who is based in Bangkok and who has worked for tabloids for years, pointed out in an e-mail to me that there is good reason to question the authenticity of the photo that Thai Rath ran.
He wrote in an article this week that the photos circulating the Web appear to show a body hanging in a “…cheap closet. A bed is less than one meter away from the closet and the room has a wooden floor — all hardly the stuff of a suite in a prestigious hotel such as the Swissotel Nai Lert Park.”
Just take a look at the hotel’s Web site and you will see how luxurious the rooms are.
I decided not to link to Le Fevre’s article or any other site that shows the photos. It is easy enough to find them online if you want to see them.
Whether or not the photos are real is only part of the issue. Even if they are real, news organizations have to make decisions about when it is appropriate to include graphic content on their sites. What’s the reasoning behind these decisions? I have had many conversations this year with Web editors who say they include much more graphic news on their sites these days to help drive Web traffic.
When some news organizations chose to use graphic photos of the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, my Poynter colleague Bob Steele explained how newsrooms should process a decision to show disturbing images. Steele said:
“Journalists have ethical obligations beyond seeking and reporting the truth about substantive issues and events. Journalists and their news organizations have a moral obligation and professional duty to show respect for human beings and compassion for those who are very vulnerable. The primary principle for journalists is to seek the truth and report it as fully as possible. But journalists must balance that principle with another principle that I call ‘minimizing harm.’
“Journalism is inherently intrusive and invasive. There are many times — in our obligation to be fair, accurate and authentic — when we must tell the painful truth with words and images. But we should strive in our reporting techniques and publishing decisions to avoid causing unnecessary harm.”
I wonder what you think of my decision not to add a link to the alleged death photos. On the one hand, I have reason to question the authenticity of at least the death scene photos, and I don’t want the link to live on in my column. On the other hand, I don’t know how you can evaluate the story without seeing the elements of it.
So, I wonder if you would share your thoughts on this issue. Is it overly paternalistic for newsrooms to shield readers from such things? To what extent does linking to a source show an endorsement of the site’s contents? How do you make decisions when it comes to linking to graphic content?
You can post your thoughts in the comment section of this column.
