Flipping off
Ken Otterbourg at the Winston-Salem Journal writes about a not uncommon occurrence at newspapers: Photo subjects messing with you.
We've had high school students give us fake names to go into captions or, worse, give us a real name of one of their pals as a prank on us and their friend. Those are hard to prevent short of demanding a photo ID of everyone in a photograph.
I don't recall a photo we took with someone inconspicuously or inadvertently giving the camera the finger, but I've seen it in other photographs. Otterbourg tells of a picture they published that inspired one reader to complain about the coarse gesture. (Unfortunately, Otterbourg printed the letter from the reader verbatim, an action with no discernible purpose except to embarrass the writer.)
I'll end as he has: You be the editor. Would you have run the photograph?
Comments (4)
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I always believed that be be effective the finger must be pointing up and clearly scene, even the American POW's in Vietnam knew that.
That picture appears to be an honest effort to hold it in place. What would you do if you discovered that the individual had arthritis or had missing fingers? Things that that picture would not reveal.
Posted on January 28, 2008 3:16 PM
Interesting perspective, Don. I have never heard that about the finger needing to be pointed up.
It looks like an odd way to hold the page, as opposed to between the thumb and index finger, but I see your point.
I think we would have published it...I also think we would have gotten some calls about it.
Posted on January 28, 2008 3:26 PM
I dunno ... when I was in school (not that long ago), it was an insult whichever way you pointed it. Looking at the photo, it does seem an odd way to hold the paper, but maybe that's just me.
Posted on January 28, 2008 5:21 PM
Could be an attempt at a joke, could be an accident. I've occasionally scratched my face or caught an errant sheet of paper, only to realize too late that I used the dreaded digit. It strikes me as incredibly silly that an appendage could cause such offense, but I guess that's culture for you.
Posted on January 30, 2008 3:40 PM