The New York Post ran a front page picture of a man about to get hit by the subway, accompanied with the words “DOOMED.” Don’t look up the photo. It is hardly worth giving the publication the satisfaction.
The shocking photo was run to get people’s attention, which happened. But the response was something the editors should have expected: justifiable outrage.
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Exploiting the last moments of a man’s life for no other purpose other than to increase pick-up rate is highly unethical, and should be condemned by everyone.
Media outlets across the country spoke out about the disgusting sensationalization by the New York Post, but most outlets still showed the shocking front page, unable to resist the temptation to sensationalize the story themselves.
Too much blame has been placed on the photographer who took the picture, many claiming that he shirked his moral duty as a human being for snapping a photo rather than endeavoring to save the man.
The photographer can hardly be blamed, though, it being unlikely that even without taking the photo he’d have been able to save the man’s life.
Instead, the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the paper’s editors, whose charge it is to be the moral and ethical compass of the publication.
These editors, and the media at large, have to disconnect themselves from the flash and fizzle journalism that has turned the modern newsroom into a media circus. The only news revealed by the New York Post with that cover was the depths the paper is willing to sink to increase their own readership.
