Editor’s note, Ahmedabad, 23 January 2012

Our lensman had worked hard. In chilly air of this super-winter he went on his bike to Sanand outside the city and clicked photos of a Sadhu who committed suicide hanging on shikhara of mandir after brutally murdering four.

So, by evening, DeshGujarat’s inbox received a set of photos, in which one photo featuring dead body of a sadhu hanging on the shikhara of mandir was a unique one. For pure subject value, this photo was interesting, because a dead body hanging over the shikhara is a rare incident.

But publishing such photo was not right thing to do. In fact publishing any suicide scene is not correct.

So that photo just remained in inbox.

And there was great amount of eagerness and curiosity to see the newspapers next morning.

So, today morning all three major Gujarati newspapers have published the sadhu’s suicide picture prominently. One newspaper has given this photo a front page position in full length, another has published it on the top of the last page. The third Gujarati daily has published the photo inside, but the story goes on the front page at the top position.

It is very nice to see that none of the major English dailies has published a suicide photo. They have published a room where four were murdered. They have published a photo of mandir. But they have stayed away from publishing a photo of suicide or dead bodies.

Though the scene of hanging dead body over mandir shikhara was visually unique, even TV media yesterday stayed away from showing the dead body. But it seems our Gujarati mainstream media was lacking of courage to do away with the photo.

In past while discussing this issue with a news photographer friend who has worked in Surat, it came to notice that in Surat the press photographers regularly visit postmortem room to click the dead bodies, and photos of dead bodies are published there by dailies along with related crime story!

But worst are the decisions to publish suicide photos. A lady hanging on fan, a burnt dead body of a lady after suicide in a room, a dead body lying outside the lake after fire brigade team fished it out …. and the list goes on. Our local newspapers publish such photos, without giving a thought to its impact. Very worst kind of journalistic decisions indeed.

There was a time when parents used to ask children to create a habit of reading newspapers for general knowledge. But if the editors keep publishing photos of suicide, and brutally murdered dead bodies, a day has almost come when parents would have to keep newspaper away from children.