NY포스트 사고순간 1면 편집 논란
황색언론의 막장사진인가.

뉴욕의 타블로이드신문 뉴욕 포스트가 지하철역에서 떠밀려 전동차에 부딛쳐 숨진 한인의 사고 직전 사진을 커버에 대문짝만하게 실어 파문이 일고 있다.

뉴욕 포스트는 4일자 신문커버에 전날 맨해튼 49가역에서 흑인 남성에게 떠밀려 선로에 추락한 한기석(58)씨가 돌진하는 전동차를 바라보며 트랙에 올라오려고 애쓰는 사진을 실었다.

포스트는 “(선로에 떨어진 이 남성은 죽기 직전이다.(Pushed in the subway track, this man is about to die.)”라는 설명과 함께 하단에 (죽을)운명이라는 ‘DOOMED’라는 큼지막한 활자까지 달았다.
 
이날 아침 뉴욕포스트를 접한 시민들은 충격적인 사진에 입을 다물지 못했다. 제니라는 이름의 여성은 “보기만 해도 소름이 끼친다. 피해자가 저 순간 얼마나 무서웠겠느냐”고 안타까워 했다.

한인들은 신문사의 지나친 선정성에 분노하는 모습이었다. 메트로노스 통근열차를 타고 맨해튼에 출근한다는 김현동씨는 “가판대에 있는 신문을 보고 처음엔 합성사진인 줄 알았다. 어떻게 저런 끔찍한 사진을 1면에 실을 수 있는지 모르겠다”고 비난했다.

일부에서는 사진을 촬영할 시간이 있다면 사람을 구출해야 하는 게 아니냐고 분통을 터뜨리기도 했다. 퀸즈에 사는 송모씨는 “1초라도 빨리 달려가서 사람을 끌어내야지, 사진을 찍는다는 게 말이 되느냐”고 어이없어 했다.

이 사진을 촬영한 기자는 뉴욕포스트의 프리랜서 기자 우마 압바시(Umar Abbasi)다. 그날 트랙에서 지하철을 기다리던 그는 사고 순간을 목격하고 기관사에게 경고하기 위해 플래시를 터뜨린 것이라고 해명했다.

그는 “피해자가 트랙에 떨어진 직후 전동차 쪽을 향해 달려가면서 플래시를 연속해서 터뜨렸다. 기관사가 내 플래시 불빛을 볼 수 있기를 바랐다”고 말했다. 뉴욕 포스트는 “전동차가 천천히 진입했지만 한씨가 미처 오르지 못하고 부딛혀 전동차와 플랫폼에 끼고 말았다”고 전했다.

그러나 이 같은 해명에도 불구하고 뉴욕 포스트가 죽음을 눈 앞에 둔 한 남성의 절박한 처지를 상업적으로 이용했다는 비판을 면키는 어려울 것으로 보인다. 뉴욕 포스트는 미디어재벌 루퍼트 머독이 소유한 매체다.

뉴욕 타임스는 이날 센세이셔널한 뉴욕 포스트의 커버를 싣고 ‘꼭 이런 사진을 실어야 했나?(Should this subway photo have been published?)’라는 제목으로 문제를 제기했다.

뉴욕 타임스는 “오늘 뉴욕 포스트가 1면에 올린 사진은 너무나 생생하다. 그러나 그걸 꼭 올려야만 했을까. 이 사진을 찍은 기자는 전동차 기관사가 볼 수 있게 카메라 플래시를 터뜨린 것이라고 했지만 카메라를 내려놓고 그를 구조했어야 했다”고 일침을 가했다.

뉴욕 타임스의 지적에 대해 미국의 네티즌들도 “카메라 스위치를 켜고 들이댈 시간에 달려가서 구해야지 무슨 소리를 하고 있나”, “그 기자는 사진을 찍어선 안 됐고 설사 사진을 찍었어도 포스트가 신문에 실어선 안 됐다”고 비난을 가했다.

【뉴욕=뉴시스】노창현 특파원 = robin@newsis.com
뉴시스 기사전송 2012-12-05 06:40 최종수정 2012-12-05 07:56
출처) //news.nate.com/view/20121205n02783
 //www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/nyregion/suspect-in-fatal-subway-push-is-in-custody.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0
네이트닷컴, 뉴시스, 뉴욕포스트
By MICHAEL WILSON and DANIEL KRIEGER
Published: December 4, 2012

After Fatal Subway Shove, Asking: Were There No Heroes?

The question of the day in New York City on Tuesday — what would you do? — rode on a wave of outrage over a harrowing act the day before. A clearly agitated man pushed a 58-year-old stranger onto the track of an oncoming subway train in Midtown Manhattan.
 
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

A day after a man died when pushed onto subway tracks, riders stood close to the edge in Brooklyn.
Connect with NYTMetro
Metro Twitter Logo.

Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation.

The man, Ki-Suck Han of Elmhurst, Queens, was struck and killed.

As happens once every few years, riders collectively looked down at the tracks to face a fear peculiar to the subway system. What would you do if you were pushed to the tracks? Or if you were standing beside someone who was pushed?

“I wouldn’t do the wrong thing,” one man said as he waited for a train at the station where Mr. Han was hit, at 49th Street and Seventh Avenue, on Tuesday. That was enough, he said: “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The episode, while not unheard-of in New York City, brought with it something distinctly new: pictures, taken seconds before the victim was struck, by a freelance photographer waiting for the train.

The pictures, which were published in The New York Post, brought wide criticism and were derided as ghoulish and insensitive. But the pictures’ mere existence started another conversation across the city on Tuesday, summarized by the television weatherman Al Roker, who, on NBC’s “Today Show,” said: “Somebody’s taking that picture. Why aren’t they helping this guy up?”

The police took a suspect in the case into custody Tuesday afternoon at 50th Street and Seventh Avenue, just a block from the subway entrance where detectives had spent hours boarding subways, car by car, and asking witnesses to come forward.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said Tuesday night that the suspect had implicated himself in the crime. He said that charges were not expected until Wednesday because detectives wanted to conduct a lineup for witnesses to identify the attacker.

One law enforcement official said that the suspect, originally from Africa, was a peddler and was on the street working when he was taken into custody. The official said that detectives were trying to determine a motive.

“I don’t think this is a crazy man throwing people under the train,” the official said, adding, “there is interaction between the two of them.” Part of the exchange was recorded on video; it has led investigators to believe there was some sort of dispute before the attack.

The official said that the suspect had been arrested before, but apparently only for low-level offenses, including peddling. Vendors who said they knew the man, who has not been officially identified, said he ran errands and helped them haul their wares to storage for $5 a trip, and that he showed up on Tuesday with his head and beard shaved.

“I showed him The Post,” said Liz Willis, who runs a newsstand on the corner. “ ‘This looks like you,’ ” she said she told him. “He said, ‘That’s not me.’ ” She saw a detective lead him away a short while later. Another law enforcement official said the man did odd jobs for street peddlers, making roughly $40 a day.

The freelance photographer who took the pictures, R. Umar Abbasi, defended his actions in an interview. “I’m being unfairly beaten up in the press,” he said at his apartment in Greenwich Village on Tuesday, before leading a reporter to the 49th Street subway platform to re-enact what had happened.

Mr. Abbasi said he was wearing a 20-odd pound backpack of camera gear for an assignment, and was standing near the 47th Street entrance to the platform when he saw the man fall on the tracks. “Nobody helped,” he said. “People started running away.”

“I saw the lights in the distance,” signaling a subway’s approach, he said, so he started firing off flashes on the camera — 49 times in all, he said — as a means of warning the driver.

“I was not aiming to take a photograph of the man on the track,” he said, later adding that his arm was fully outstretched, the camera far from his face.

Reporting was contributed by Joseph Goldstein, J. David Goodman, William K. Rashbaum, Wendy Ruderman and Nate Schweber.