Herald apologizes for graphic photos
Deluged by an outpouring of anger, the Boston Herald acknowledged yesterday that it made a bad decision in publishing a large, graphic, front-page photo and a more explicit inside picture of the Emerson College student fatally injured in the Kenmore Square melee.
''The Herald today published two graphic photos that angered and upset many in our community," editorial director Kenneth Chandler said in a statement. ''For that I apologize. Our aim was to demonstrate this terrible tragedy as comprehensively as possible. In retrospect, the images of this unusually ugly incident were too graphic."
One color photograph, which took up much of the front page, showed the bloodied student, Victoria Snelgrove, lying on the ground near onlookers. A more graphic black-and-white picture, revealing most of the woman's face, ran on Page 4. Around the region, people responded quickly.
Danielle Gaglione, an employee of McKenna's Cafe in Dorchester, said patrons reacted to the photos with ''disbelief and disgust."
Describing the mood in her workplace, WHDH-TV (Channel 7) spokeswoman Virginia Lund said: ''There were a lot of people really disgusted in the office. . . . Sympathy went out to this poor girl's family."
David Procopio, press secretary for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, wrote a letter to the Herald saying the photos ''violated the sanctity and privacy that every life deserves in its last moments."
At a gathering on the Emerson campus, some of Snelgrove's classmates spoke angrily about the front-page photo. And at Northeastern University, the Student Government Association announced it will no longer allow the Herald to display stacks of free papers on campus.
On its website, the Herald published scores of messages from readers yesterday. One wrote: ''This has to be the most appalling, disgusting display of sleazy journalism I have ever seen."
Howard Dempsey, a family friend who answered the telephone at the Snelgrove home in East Bridgewater yesterday, declined to discuss the Herald's photos. ''We're definitely not commenting on that," he said.
Bob Steele -- senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank -- offered a strong comment on the front-page photo. ''To me that is unprofessional and disrespectful, and it does not further the journalistic purpose of the reporting," he said.
According to a Herald newsroom source, the decision to publish the photos was based on a desire to illustrate the consequences of unruly fan behavior, particularly in light of the death of a student after the Patriots' Super Bowl win. The two pictures that prompted yesterday's furor were distributed through the SIPA Press agency. A SIPA representative declined to answer questions.
The Boston Globe published a photo of the supine Snelgrove from a distance inside the paper. Taken by graduate student Jim Sullivan, it was among a number of images, some more graphic than the one published, that the paper had. Sullivan said that given his concerns about showing respect for the victim and her family, ''I agonized over whether or not to submit the pictures."
The Globe's editor, Martin Baron, said the intent was ''to use a photo that, while capturing the news and the scene, was not sensational or very graphic."
''The photo we selected was taken from a distance, was small in dimension, and did not show an identifiable face, published deep inside the paper and printed in black and white, which did not show blood," Baron said.
Chazy Dowaliby, editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, said her paper used a portrait of Snelgrove and a ''general riot shot" but passed on anything more graphic. ''If there are local people involved, we tend to err on the side of conservatism," she said.
CBS4 (Channel 4) and sister station WSBK-TV (Channel 38) did show footage of Snelgrove's wounds, although in one case her head was partially turned from the camera, and in another it was partially obscured. ''There's obviously intense public interest in this tragedy," said spokeswoman Ro Dooley-Webster. ''We feel the two seconds of air time dedicated to the images sufficiently illustrates its impact."
WHDH-TV acknowledged it ''zoomed in" on the student briefly after initially being told she had not suffered a significant injury. But Lund said the close-ups stopped once the station learned of the severity of the wounds. A spokeswoman, Julie Sullivan, said NECN broadcast nothing more explicit than a still shot of people huddled around the victim's body with her face obscured.
WFXT-TV (Channel 25) used footage of Snelgrove blocked out by people surrounding her and one aerial shot of her being loaded into the ambulance, said news director Lisa Graham. Elizabeth Cheng, program director at WCVB-TV (Channel 5), said her station used a wide shot of the student on the ground but obscured her upper body and face. A WLVI-TV (Channel 56) spokeswoman, Kristen Holgerson, said her station was offered the same images the Herald used but rejected them.
Thomas Farragher of the Globe staff and correspondent Stephanie Vosk contributed to this report. 