I‘m not sure what the correct response would have been from the New York Times to the State Department’s request Wednesday not to post online a graphic AFP photograph of the fatally wounded U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.There are reasonable arguments both ways, I suppose, and the Times‘s associate managing editor for standards may be right when he says, “this chaotic and violent event was extremely significant as a news story, and we believe this photo helps to convey that situation to Times readers in a powerful way.”
But I was struck by this comment by Ian Fisher, the associate managing editor who was in charge of the Times‘s web site: “We don’t hesitate to run pictures of Iraqis, Syrians and Qaddafi dead. We’ve been at war for years. We’ve shown a lot of bodies.”
