This image was published on The New York Post's front page on December 4, 2012 with the headline: "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die." The photo of 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han about to be hit by an oncoming subway train amplified tension and anger from people wondering why no one, including the photographer, pulled the victim to safety on top of why the newspaper published the image at all.

 

R. Umar Abbasi, a freelance photographer, captured the image after someone shoved the victim, Han, from a subway platform near Times Square. Seconds after photographer Abbasi captured the images, the train struck and killed Han. Abbasi claimed that he had no chance to help the victim out of the subway tracks and stated that he started taking pictures to alert the subway driver with his camera flash, which I do not believe at all.

 

In my opinion, the newspaper and photographer were ethically wrong and should be ashamed of the lack of humanity in this picture. There is a fine line of ethics in photojournalism regarding the choice to put the camera away and the decision of whether or not the photo should appear in a publication. There are no exceptions to anyone publishing this image, much less taking it.