Toronto's obscene cover

Is the image of someone flipping the bird really something people find extremely offensive and unacceptable? I mean, obviously I understand its meaning, but aren't we going overboard these days with taking stands against something that's not a huge deal to many people. Just seems a bit silly to me

 

The picture tells the story. There are plenty of papers that shy away from using photos as they were intended. This is the biggest story in the entire country, right? No reason to downplay what happpened.

 

I wouldn't run it because it sucks. There were plenty of awesome of photos being taken. This one wouldn't even be in the top 100 of shots I've seen so far.

 

Would you put the paper's decision in the top three of disasters this decade?

 

Middle fingers aren't unprecedented in the newspaper.

I believe many papers ran this photo of then vice president Nelson Rockefeller flipping the bird at hecklers in 1976.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CCKFxhIs-xU/SAj4fY_sPXI/AAAAAAAAAPI/N3-b5RRSuQo/s400/rockefeller%2520finger.jpg

 

The photo doesn't bother me nearly as much as the pure, unadulterated, horseshit lede. Obviously massaged into gelatinous goo-glop by two reporters, a national editor, a copy editor and one or two corner-office types pitching in from over their shoulders.
Read that lede. Why are newspapers dying? It ain't because of the photo.

 

Veering a little off topic here. During the playing of the Canadian anthem before the game with fans singing in, I was struck by what appeared to be a more unified country than we are in the states. You know, people that don't shoot each other up the way we do, and care that everybody has health insurance. It made me think of how people in Japan stuck together after the earthquake. Seeing pictures and videos of those riots, in contrast to those images, was pretty striking.

I personally didn't find the photo to be at all offensive, and showing rioters flipping the bird contributed to the storytelling. I'd have used it.

 

In the Vancouver paper, the front page has RI- and the jump page has -OT

 

Of course we'll never know how Leafs fans will react to losing in the Stanley Cup Final.

 

Why is he wearing sandals?

 

For our paper to do that would be a huge deal, and I wouldn't want to take that kind of a chance on a hockey riot photo.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/vancouver-riots-2011_n_878128.html