"The Boston Photographs" by Nora Ephron
Message Prompt

The central issue with publishing Stanley Forman’s photos was that they portrayed such a disturbing situation. Forman’s photos were of building on fire, and a fireman trying to rescue a woman and her child on a fire escape. The situation seemed in control until the fire escape collapsed, and the woman and her child began to fall. The woman, Miss Diana Bryant, unfortunately died in the fall. The child landed on her body and survived. In one photo, the fire escape is collapsing as Miss Bryant tries to hang onto the firefighter’s legs. In another, the woman and child are plummeting to the ground. The issue with publishing these photos was that they were very upsetting to the public. The photo shows Miss Bryant in her last moments of life. The viewer knows that this picture was taken seconds before she died. Because the photos were so close to her death, editors did not want to publish such a dark image.

In my opinion, the photos are newsworthy for two different reasons. The first is obviously that a woman fell to her death in an attempt to escape a fire. One can always find tragic stories such as this one in the news. The other reason is that photos such as these are not often put in the papers. The Boston pictures are very upsetting, and most newspapers try to censor material such as this. I find these photos to be newsworthy because they actually made the paper, and stirred up quite a great deal of controversy.

Editors claimed that the publication of the photos was justified because death is an important part of life. Death is inevitable for everyone. It is a main aspect of life, and therefore, many editors felt that it should not be censored. Everyone will one day face death, so why bother hiding it from the public? The one thing people keep in their minds after reading an article on the tragic incident is the woman’s death. It is the most important part of the story, so why hide the pictures from the public? Ephron accepts this idea and believes the photos were both sensational and deserving of a spot in the papers.

If the woman had survived the fall, the pictures certainly would not have had the same impact on the public. People were so disturbed by the photos and considered them “voyeuristic” because they had to deal with her death. The audience knew that in the photo, the woman was just seconds away from death. It was a dark picture. If, however, the audience knew that the woman survived, it would be completely different. Sure she would be falling. Yet the audience would know she is not falling to her death. Had she survived the fall, the pictures would not be so disturbing. The public would react differently to the photos. Therefore, the case would be entirely opposite had she survived the horrible fall.