Let's Get Ethical

One of my favorite things to do is think about media ethics. It's something I've always loved to do and enjoy a great discussion about choices the various media outlets make regarding their coverage and/or publication of events.

A perfect chance has come up today. Let me give you a quick background of the events.

Last night, an embattled former city commissioner walked into the lobby of the Miami Herald and shot himself in the head. He died a few hours later.

Now, I'm not in Miami, so I don't know how big of an event - or even the corruption charges - was to the community, but for this to happen right in the lobby is different and indeed newsworthy in my opinion.

The question before you is this. Do you run the photo the Herald chose? Do you run a different one that might not have blood in it? Do you run it above-the-fold? In color? Inside? Black-and white?

This is today's front page of the Miami Herald.

You can also see the same picture on the front page of the Herald'sWeb site.

It's very hard to make a decision without knowing the type of community Miami is. I'm of the opinion that the Austin American-Statesman probably would have run it, the San Antonio Express-News is 50-50 and The University Star more than likely would not - as they chose not to when a student committed suicide in his vehicle in a campus parking lot. The photo they chose to run (when I was a news reporter and not a member of the paper's editorial board) was a black-and-white photo of three officers investigating a sheet-covered vehicle.

The following photo is from The Star's Web site, so it is in color.


So there's the golden questions. In which way do you run these photos while also thinking of your audience?