What would you have chosen to do as a journalist in this situation? Because this case study is intended primarily as a teaching resource, a password is required to view the epilogue. The purpose is to encourage readers to pause and think about how they would resolve the difficulty, before learning how the journalist(s) involved […]

Given the demands of a digital newsroom, BuzzFeed’s Daro and Strapagiel didn’t have long to decide whether or not they would blur the faces. They debated for about 10 to 15 minutes as Daro filed the story, Strapagiel says. Daro maintained that the partygoers shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions because of their young […]

Some commentators question whether revealing participants’ faces serves a journalistic purpose. Is there value in showing the faces of individual people who participated in the party? Can the story be told just as well if the participants’ faces are obscured? Does the public value of telling the story outweigh the potential harm to participants? “What’s […]

Some argue that blurring the faces of the participants is akin to protecting racists, and that publicly shaming these participants is a justified form of deterrence for other potential racists. The Globe and Mail’s Stewart said in an email, “The fact that this was a story in which the visuals were intrinsic, and that the […]

For young people growing up in the digital age, the blurring of the boundaries between the private and public realms is more pronounced than it was in the past. “People who spent their college years and high school years before the internet had a lot more freedom and leeway to indulge in the not uncommon […]

Ethical questions around how journalists should use images to illustrate a story have become ever more complex in recent decades. Digital cameras have become ubiquitous, and social media has blurred the lines between public and private. Even if a photo is in the public domain, where do journalists’ ethical responsibilities lie? James Turk, director of […]

For outlets that had clear policies and past practices, the decision to blur or not blur was simple. Eric Andrew-Gee reported on the story for the Globe and Mail. When asked about the Globe’s decision to leave the faces unobscured, he surmised in an email, “It’s not our practice to blur photos, so we stuck […]

Brian Rogers, a media lawyer with a focus on libel, privacy and freedom of expression, says the concerns around how to use the photos from the party are mostly ethical considerations. From a legal perspective, he argues, things are much clearer. The subjects in the photographs appear to be deliberately posing, so the photos don’t […]

On November 21, 2016, Toronto-based comedian Celeste Yim tweeted photos from the party. She wrote that she came across the photos in a Facebook album shared by a Queen’s student. The album, which is no longer available, was viewable by “friends of friends,” including Yim. “A very shockingly racist party thrown by Queen’s students happened,” […]