This photo (and cover headlines) from the New York Post earlier this week have been attracting an enormous amount of attention. Post freelancer R. Umar Abbasi took the photo of Ki Suk Han, who was pushed in front of the oncoming subway by a man who was reportedly harassing others at the station.
Reaction to the tabloid’s cover was immediate. As would be expected, the sensational headline was seen by most as inappropriate. But what about the photo? Should it have been published at all? Or should it have even been taken? Why didn’t the photographer try to save the poor man?
I first heard about this cover and the news that led to it from a UPI news service blog that raised many of these questions.
Ben Jacobs, writing for The Daily Download, argues that the photo was worth publishing: “The photograph’s power came simply from the sheer visual impact of the moment…. [T]his cover will linger through history and its arresting image will be remembered for decades to come.”
Zeynep Tufekci, a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, writes that she often defends the publication of graphic photos but says that this one doesn’t pass the test.
Kelly McBride, who writes about ethics for the Poynter Institute, examines the question of whether the photographer should have tried to have rescue the man rather than taking pictures. She notes that while it is difficult to judge the actions of the photographer, it’s easier to judge the decisions made by New York Post editors to run the photo. Poynter photo faculty member Kenny Irby wrote in an e-mail that the Post had several good alternatives to choose from other than the incredibly disturbing photo that they published.
For what it’s worth, Abbasi (the photographer) says that he could not have rescued the man and that he fired off his flash to warn the train driver. And other tabloid photographers have defended Abbasi for taking the photo (though several of them raised questions as to whether the Post ought to have published it.)
So here are my questions for you:
Would you have taken the picture? Why or why not? If you knew for certain that you couldn’t rescue the man, would that make a difference in your decision?
Should the New York Post have published the photo? Why or why not? Did publishing the photo serve any larger purpose?
Could you construct an ethical argument for and an argument against publishing the photo?
GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? … Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? …
Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? If you hadn’t come up with the recipe yourself, would you ever guess that the shiny tissue of breading that exudes grease onto the plate contains either pretzels or smoked almonds? Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?
Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?
Now I will confess that I enjoy Guy’s show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and in fact I have eaten at a couple of the places he’s featured on the show and enjoyed them immensely – primarily because they are modest-sized, locally owned joints. (Laurer-Krauts is right outside of Denver, Colorado and serves an amazing hamburger/cabbage/sauerkraut roll; Red Iguana in Salt Lake City has some of the most interesting Mexican food I’ve ever tried.) And I suspect that I really wouldn’t be that enthused about Guy’s New York restaurant because it sounds suspiciously like the Hard Rock Cafe type places I try to avoid on principle.
But did Mr. Fieri’s restaurant really deserve that brutal drubbing Wells delivered?
The review is very mean and very funny and, of course, completely within the purview of the restaurant critic who, like all critics, has all the pleasure and all the pain that comes with the freedom to speak his mind.
She goes on to note that Wells will not be making a habit of such scathing reviews, quoting him as saying, “Negative reviews should be done sparingly.”
Left unsaid is what’s obvious: When you must write a negative review, make it memorable.
Did Mr. Wells accomplish that? No question.
The reaction to the review has been all over the place.
Time magazine’s TV critic James Poniewozik has a fun analysis of the review, noting that it’s enjoyable to read and may well be an accurate analysis of the food. He also makes the interesting point that Triple D (as Guy’s show is known) is more an “eating” show than a “cooking” show.
The New Yorker (one of my favorite weekly reads) sent a couple of staffers to Guy’s restaurant to see how bad things really are. Hannah Goldfield and Amelia Lester ask their own question: “How bad can a highly caloric meal in an air-conditioned environment really be?” Their conclusion is that it was a nice place for lunch with some hits and some misses, and that they might go back again.
NPR’s Scott Simon asks what I think is the key question– Why did Pete Wells bother trashing Fieri’s restaurant when it became clear the food was neither good nor interesting?Why doesn’t a critic hop the subway and find some unheralded spot in Queens or Staten Island that’s worth the attention?I asked Pete Wells: When you could tell that the food was so bad, why didn’t you just leave?”I’m struggling to come up with an interesting answer to your question,” he quickly wrote back. “I get paid to eat bad food.”
I think that this highlights the key issue in my mind. Wells is not paid to eat bad food. He’s paid to help his readers find interesting places to eat and avoid bad or boring places. And trashing a theme park of restaurant by a TV host does little to help the interested diner. The only good reason to do the review is to show how scathing and clever the writer can be. And Wells certainly accomplished that.
Wednesday afternoon I was working at putting the finishing touches on a guest lecture I was about to give on social media, and so I went looking for an up-to-date example. And here’s what I found….
Of course, Hamas has had their own response through social media as well, such as a YouTube video apparently showing the launch of a missile targeted at Israel.
Governments, opposition groups, rebels and terrorists have long used propaganda along with guns and bombs to fight their battles. Social media have now been added to the mix.
Is Skyfall too much of a remix of the Dark Knight movie storylines? Movie blogRopes of Silicon seems to think so, as does my friend and sometimes guest blogger Charley Reed.
Does Skyfall’s director acknowledge the influence of Nolan’s Batman movies?
Sports blog Deadspin has a review that points to an article at The Playlist in which director Sam Mendes says that he took inspiration from Nolan’s Batman, but in an article linked to through the Wired piece (at UK’s Metro) Mendes says the influence was limited to seeing how a dark, gritty terrorism story could make a lot of money.
What do I think? I dunno. I’m seeing Skyfall tonight. But I’m not particularly bothered by similar story lines in big time movies. That’s been going on for a long time. And Trickster stories have a centuries long history…. As do hero’s journey stories… And orphans as heroes…
Advertising agency professionals have always, I’m certain, wanted to complain about the stupid things clients say they want done. But recently an Irish agency put together a poster exhibition based on the stupidest things their clients have ever said. Below is one sample, but go to the link above and check out the whole exhibit. (Hat Tip to On The Media)
Yesterday I posted a number of predictions from pundits about how the presidential election would turn out. The best predictions did not come from the partisans, they came from the number crunchers who took a hard look at what the polls and economic data had to say. They let the numbers say what they said – and their results were remarkably close to what actually happened. This won’t always be the case. There’s always a chance of error, but good numbers people try to report that as well.
Our pundits have spoken! And today we get to find out what we the people have to say about how the election turns out.
And that means tomorrow (I hope!) we get to judge how well the pundits did at predicting the outcome.
The spread of predictions is pretty wide, with CNBC’s Jim Cramer saying that it will be (in electoral votes) Obama 440, Romney 98. On the other hand, Dick Morris over at Fox News is calling it at Romney 325, Obama 213. I don’t really believe that either of these predictions have any basis in reality other than being a wild guess.
To me, the most interesting prediction comes from Nate Silver of the much-discussed FiveThirtyEight blog, which had an impressive record in predicting the 2008 presidential primaries and general election. The blog, which is now run out of the New York Times, is operated by baseball and political statistician Nate Silver. (In case you were wondering, 538 is the total number of votes in the Electoral College.) What I like about Silver is that he makes a clear prediction based on data (consolidated polling data) and then gives a likelihood of being right. So, this morning he was predicting Obama 313 , Romney 225, with Obama having a 90.9 % chance of winning. A wide number of mostly conservative critics claim that Silver is letting his own preferences color his predictions, while others claim that poll aggregation simply doesn’t work.
Want to make your own prediction? Use this great interactive tool at 270 To Win (You need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency) that lets you assign winners and losers to the electoral map.
And finally, if you don’t know where to vote, this great tool lets you find your polling place anywhere in the country!
