Emergency services at the scene of a fatal car crash on the Masterton Castlepoint Rd on Monday night.
Emergency services at the scene of a fatal car crash on the Masterton Castlepoint Rd on Monday night.
THERE is a saying, news is something someone doesn't want published, and anything else is advertising. I think George Orwell said it.
I do not subscribe to that extreme view completely. It's a saying conveying a principle, but it's not an absolute. Reading newspapers is supposed to be a leisureactivity as well as fulfilling a desire for information - especially with so many other digital ways people can obtain their news. Newspapers have a role to praise the behaviour we want in our community, and to enhance a community's well-being.
Nonetheless, truth is at the core of what the media is about, and that includes photographs - considered to be a snapshot of real truth, even in these days of digital manipulation. Recently, we published photos of a man accused of crashing his car, snapping him outside the district court after his hearing. He was so incensed at being photographed in the street he drove to the Times-Age to complain, actually beating the photographer back to the building. My answer to that is simple: the process of justice is not hidden. Those accused of a crime must submit to a process, and that includes the public being informed.
On Monday night, we attended a bad crash on the road from Castlepoint and took pictures of the smashed car, putting them online as an advance news story in preparation for the morning paper. Nearly 5000 people viewed the post on Facebook, but appeared conflicted as to whether they wanted to see photos of a crashed car. Some praised the Times-Age for being immediate, current and delivering a strong message. Others felt showing photographs was hard on the families of the victims.
My answers to that are: yes, people do want to see crash photos, readers do want more awareness and attention given to how dangerous our roads can be, and people should not keep forgetting we are a news agency. If you log in to the Facebook page of a newspaper, what are you expecting to see? You're going to see news, immediate and real. It will happen more as well as we develop our breaking news section. We'll be sensitive to what we show, but news is our business.
