COLUMN: Why on earth would you print that picture

A few days ago I received a text message from a friend who was very upset over a picture that had run in my hometown newspaper. The picture was of her daughter and she wanted my opinion on what I thought of the photo, and if this was something that should be published.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but when she sent the picture I could easily understand what caused her frustration. Along with a girl dribbling the basketball at a recent tournament, her middle-school aged daughter was also featured in the picture. She was lying down on the ground holding onto her leg in excruciating pain from a bad injury that would result in a visit to the hospital. The photo was one of many on a picture page and I could not believe they decided to publish. I quickly gave her my opinion that a community newspaper should never run a picture of an injured kid.

While it was something I would never do, I have seen this in other newspapers and I really question the judgment made by the staff. There should have been someone in the chain of command that stopped this, but unfortunately that did not happen. I'm sure there was another useable picture and it could have been cropped and the problem would have been solved.

There was a large outcry from the community about the picture and I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if I had run the picture on the front page of the Whitehall Ledger. It would be bad. Just thinking about it gave me a nightmare the scenario happened and it was not pretty. I once worked at a weekly paper that ran a picture of an "exotic dancer" on the front page and the next few days were brutal with the phone ringing off the hook and just about everyone in town having an opinion of the picture – and one that was usually not that kind. I've never seen that many letters to the editor in one paper.

Bad judgment or mistakes certainly do happen in journalism, but it got me to thinking of things that newspapers should never do. While you certainly want people looking at and talking about the paper, you need to be careful why they are doing so.

The one no-no that really grinds my gears on a weekly basis is charging for to run an obituary. While I definitely understand the need for publications to generate income in an often times struggling industry, this is just one area I feel should be off limits.

The Ledger will charge a small fee if the family would like to run the obituary multiple times or if it takes up an entire page, but this rarely happens and the charge is pennies compared to what it cost in other publications.

I cringe when a family comes in with an obituary and tells me how much they paid in another publication. I'm always happy to tell them that the first time an obituary run it will always be free in the Ledger. I'd rather shut the doors than charge a family who is in sorrow. There is no need for it or for pictures of injured kids.

A kid with a smile will sell a lot more papers anyway.