The photo of a child shot in 19 99 was the last thing his mother had from her son before he died. She says she would look at it all the time and feel sadness, but also relief when she realized how quick this boy's death was. The editor should decide whether or not to publish these images if they are seen by journalists like herself; there is no guarantee that any will be published. If you have one such image, i'm sure many other people in the social media age will share it as well. And so those photos could be used in the most harmful, hateful way against surviving family members, others. Somebody could then take that photo and send it to a teacher and
John Temple was the editor of Rocky Mountain News in April 1999, when two students committed mass murder at Columbine High School. The photos he published that day would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize and enrage Daniel Rohrbough’s mom.
This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and edited and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
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