The different photographs that The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald ran this week of a Vietnamese girl with a massive facial tumor raise questions of when a picture is exploitive of its subject or offensive to us as readers.
The photos that came in Tuesday from staff photographers were of Lai Thi Dao, a 15-year-old girl brought from Vietnam by the International Kids Fund to Jackson Memorial Hospital for an operation. She suffers from what doctors said may be the world's largest recorded example of something called a Schwannoma tumor. The growth weighed 17 pounds and consumed much of her face, threatening to block her breathing and kill her.
Lai was presented at a news conference at the hospital. This was, in other words, not a case of newspapers finding something sensationalistic. The girl's mother, the doctors, the foundation and the girl herself invited the photos and accompanying videos that can be seen at MiamiHerald.com and elNuevoHerald.com.
The hospital and the foundation were very open about why they were presenting her to the media: Lai is not a U.S. resident, so the publicly funded hospital can't legally pay the $107,000 they said the operation will cost; they asked for donations.
We don't know if Lai, a minor from a mountain village in Vietnam, is aware of the implications of being splashed across the global media. In the videos, she is shy but engaging. Usually kept indoors by her mother to protect her from harassment, she said through a translator that she wants the operation so that she can go to school and play with other youths. Your heart goes out to her.
As deadlines approached, editors at both papers knew these facts and, by all accounts, were concerned for the girl. The hospital and foundation were being manipulative, but editors say that didn't enter into their thinking. The issue was news value, and this clearly was medical news that would be of interest to readers. Both papers even added their own information on how to donate to the operation. That left the selection of pictures.
The range of options was presented by photo editors to the assembled news editors at The Miami Herald's daily 3:45 p.m. meeting and at El Nuevo Herald's meeting at 6 p.m. El Nuevo Herald's Executive Editor Humberto Castelló was on vacation, so Managing Editor Tony Espetia was in charge. The Spanish-language paper went with the most evocative photo, an almost straight-on shot of Lai in front of her mother with a clear view of the huge tumor hanging from her face. Her mouth is badly deformed. The photo and story were put on the South Florida section front.
To me as a reader, El Nuevo Herald's picture is unsettling. It certainly is not one that encourages an appetite while reading the newspaper over breakfast. But Castelló, in an interview, defended the choice, saying that he gets complaints from readers when he does not run evocative pictures seen elsewhere. This has happened recently in the cases of a deformed Ecuadorean child and a naked Nicaraguan boy, he said.
''Our criterion is to appeal to the sensibilities of our readers, who like this,'' he said. Instead of revulsion, his readers feel sympathy, he said, though he underlined that the photos still must be honest and newsworthy.
In its photo aggressiveness, El Nuevo Herald is like many Latin American newspapers.
The Miami Herald presumably represents the more restrained views of its English-language readers, including second- and third-generation Hispanics. Late Tuesday afternoon, metro photo editor Winston Townsend went in to see Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal to make a final photo selection. A 62-year-old veteran who has grappled with similar issues more times than probably he cares to remember, Townsend said he was not advocating for one picture or another. ''I was in a quandary myself,'' he said.
``Mr. Gyllenhaal directed the use of a much more impersonal picture, this one of a doctor holding up a picture of the tumor. It was a picture in a picture, in other words, diluting the impact. And while the story opened on the Metro & State section front, the photo ran with the jump inside the section.
''I think we made a pretty good set of decisions,'' Mr. Gyllenhaal said. ''We were able in the paper to portray the extremely difficult situation that this child is in without holding her up to embarrassment in any way.'' The balance Mr. Gyllenhaal sought to strike was to protect her and the reader in the newspaper, but be more graphic online.
The next morning, however, in a daily editorial meeting, many Miami Herald editors had second thoughts about whether they had been too cautious in the paper. Opinions were divided. Photo Editor Jose Luis Rios is convinced of his own stance, however. He said that in the future he would argue more strongly to publish graphic pictures if they are honest, not gratuitous and tell a story. ''I'm from the school that says we shouldn't try to protect the reader,'' he said.
All editors I spoke to at both papers, however, were adamant in saying they were opposed to showing undue blood and carnage, positions that are reflected in both papers. All also said they have no written rules. The selection of pictures is a subjective one made day to day.
What do I think? El Nuevo Herald knows its readership. Also, I have to admit that while my first position was against publishing the graphic picture of Lai -- more to protect me as a reader than her -- the more I read of the medical case the less I saw the pictures as offensive. The Miami Herald's picture did show the condition, if not quite so clearly. Publishing the pictures on inside pages makes sense. We are sure to see more pictures as Lai's operation proceeds.
