Reading Response #2

Telling Stories
Nora Ephron
The Boston Photographs


I chose this essay to write on because I was about photojournalism and I am very interested in photojournalism. I wasn’t quite sure which essay I wanted to write on this time so I looked in the index and there was the section on photojournalism. So I went to the section and looked at the pictures in it. The pictures of this woman falling out off a fire escape at the top of the building really grabbed my attention so I had to read the essay to learn what had happened.
The main idea in this essay was the uproar that these pictures caused in the media. Some people thought that they were inappropriate to publish in a public newspaper because they were so raw. What had happened was there was a fire in a five story building in Boston and Nor Ephron was there to take pictures. She was in the right place at the right time was able to get the perfect view of a fireman going to rescue a woman and her child. Without anyone knowing the fire escaped gave out and the women and her child fell. Ephron continued to take pictures of this happening and was able to capture three, the first of the woman, child and fireman on the fire escape, the next the fire escape breaking, and then lastly the woman and child falling five stories to the pavement below, she then turned around not wanted to see the final outcome. The woman did end up dying on impact while the child landed on the mother and did not die. People thought that publishing these photos made death seem like a form of entertainment, which is not the case at all. The public know that only in extreme cases will the press publish a picture of a dead body in the newspaper and they felt since this woman was so close to her death that it was pretty much the same thing. Ephron felt like she did a good deed as to showing the dangers of fire escaped and because of this story many fire escapes were checked out.
I think that these pictures did exactly what they were supposed to, grab peoples attention. Not so much as an entertainment purpose but for people to be more aware of the dangers that is out there. Ephron was not trying to publish these to be grotesque she is just an example of what a good photojournalist is. Sometimes you see stuff you don’t want to see but the story has to go out there.