Williams, Photo Discussion

 

This picture was taken when Stanley Forman -- of the Boston American Herald at the time -- was photographing what he thought to be a routine fire escape on July 22, 1975. But the fire escape gave way, and he captured a picture of Diana Bryant, 19, and her goddaughter Tiare Jones, 2, falling. Bryant died from the fall and her body cushioned the fall for her goddaughter who survived. 

Forman's picture brought tragedy to life in the way he captured the fall and the expression on Jones' face. A Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Forman for his photo, and the impact the photo had was that local governments started to create more robust fire-escape safety codes. In turn, it started an ethical discussion as to whether publishing a photo that is disturbing is OK. We know that Bryant is killed in this fall, and so while the photo is not graphic in nature, the idea of her death shortly after makes the photo more haunting -- which many readers took issue with. 

I think today this photo remains a topic of discussion when talking about photojournalism and ethics. The photo caused local governments to change safety codes, which is a positive, but at the cost of upsetting readers or perhaps more importantly upsetting the families of Bryant and Jones. When we talk about minimizing harm as an ethical value, it's interesting to debate whether this photo did that or not.