How we decide to publish graphic images
Editors weigh importance of the story while striving to avoid shock value
This story is part of the Toronto Star’s trust initiative, where, every week, we take readers behind the scenes of our journalism. This week, we focus on how the Star’s editors decide to publish graphic or potentially offensive images.
Editors at the Toronto Star are often faced with challenges when deciding what photographs are appropriate to publish on digital and print platforms, especially if the images are graphic, gruesome or offensive.
The Star’s editors were recently confronted with a situation requiring care and attention on a story about a gay couple in Pickering who returned home one day to find a homophobic slur scrawled on their garage.
After picking up their 5-year-old daughter from ballet practice on the evening of Aug. 1, Paul and Brett Alford-Jones were shocked to find the words “We Don’t Like Fagot (sic). Time to Move. 30 Days” on the side of their garage in bright orange spray paint.
The Star’s courts reporter Alyshah Hasham learned of the incident through a lawyer who is friends with Paul. While she interviewed the couple, staff photographer Richard Lautens drove to the scene.
Lautens says he tried to capture images that told the story of the trauma the couple experienced, in addition to simply showing the graffiti. He used a flash on the couple so that the eye is drawn to their facial expressions as they stand beside the hateful message. The flash also allowed Lautens to create a contrast between the couple and their garage with a slight shadow.
“Shadows inherently add a certain amount of drama and gravitas to a photograph,” he said.
In this case, sensitivity was key, he says. He spent the first 20 minutes talking with Paul and Brett before even picking up his camera.
“You’re dealing with victims and people who aren’t used to being in the public eye,” Lautens says. “You have to be aware of that going in.”
Lautens submitted at least six images to accompany Hasham’s story — one with the couple walking near the graffiti, the couple on their own, the couple near the garage, the garage only and so on.
Hasham says she felt very strongly that readers should see the graffiti.
“(The photos were) more powerful than anything I could have written,” she says. “As Paul Alford-Jones said in our interview for the story, the couple wanted to make people aware homophobia is still a real issue in the GTA and Canada. I think the uncensored photo is the most impactful way to make that point.”
Managing editor Irene Gentle also felt the public should have a chance see the hateful message rather than simply reading about it. There was no doubt a photo showing the couple and the graffiti could be used as main art online.
For the Star’s digital platforms, editor Matt Carter selected a photograph of the couple’s faces with the offending message in the background.
“Close-ups generally work better for online,” Carter said, referring to the small screens on which online stories are often viewed. “As for that shot in particular, I thought both men’s expressions were intense and emotional, and gave readers a good sense of what they were feeling.”
Different decisions were made for the print edition. Readers of any age can pick up the newspaper in their homes, regardless of whether they have access to a digital screen, and it also appears in public, on newsstands and in newspaper boxes.
At the afternoon news meeting, where the day’s photos are shown to editors on a giant screen, Lautens’ shot of the couple standing to the left side of their garage with the disturbing message taking up most of the frame drew audible gasps.
“This powerful photo generated a visceral reaction — it made us feel the same shock, fear and revulsion the couple felt when they first saw the graffiti,” said senior news editor Marie Sutherland, who oversees all the stories running on the Star’s front page in print. “We knew we had to run it, because its very offensiveness was key to the story’s message.”
The challenge facing Sutherland and her team was deciding where put it.
Everyone agreed the story was worthy of the front page, but editors, including Gentle, were uncomfortable with printing the word “faggot” (even if it was misspelled) there.
As it turned out, another highprofile photograph was also competing for A1. A judge had relaxed the bail conditions for a Toronto police officer and his brother charged in the beating of a Black teenager. That package, which raised questions about why neither Toronto police nor Durham police notified the Special Investigations Unit, was accompanied by a picture of the brothers leaving court in Oshawa. It was decided that this photo would run as main art, given that it tied in with the Star’s ongoing campaign for transparency in policing and the SIU.
Gentle said the Star tries to show the major participants in any highprofile story. “This is perhaps even more true when the case not only involves a police officer — off-duty in this instance — but also highly relevant questions on the overall accountability of the police forces involved,” she said.
In the end, the editors decided to run two photos related to Hasham’s story: a small portrait of Paul and Brett Alford-Jones on the front page below the fold, and the larger, more impactful image of the graffiti on an inside page.
“This way the readers would get a good look at their faces and a good look at the graffiti,” Sutherland said. Email questions to trust@thestar.ca