Gut-punch photo of a homeless man sparks internal debate about its usage

When I first looked at the photograph it hit me like a wallop. The picture, shot last month on Bay St. by Star photographer Steve Russell and taken while a major snowstorm was blanketing the city, shows an unidentifiable man lying in and covered by slush on the sidewalk.

It’s not uncommon to walk downtown and see homeless people on the ground. But this photo is heart rending, stark, disturbing.

To me, as public editor, the photo also speaks volumes at a time when homelessness has risen to the fore — tied to heightened concerns about public safety on transit, a woeful lack of affordable housing, mental health and drug use problems clearly visible on city streets, and encampments in parks.

The city is in a crisis and the picture seems to demand solutions to these pressing matters. Fixes from governments, businesses, somewhere.

“Sometimes you have to look at a shocking image for things to move forward. You have to deal with the problem head on,” Russell said.

In addition, I find the back story here — the photo was slated to be published for the first time over a week ago, but was held at the last minute at night after a Star editor raised concerns about its suitability for this newspaper — provides useful insights into some of the difficult choices we face at the Star when it comes to depicting homelessness.

My column this week looks into the decisions made surrounding this picture. And we’re showing the photo to you, our readers.

Russell was on an evening shift March 3, looking for what we commonly refer to as a “weather shot” — a photo depicting the storm. After walking a fair distance, he came across what he thought was a homeless person’s belongings on the west side of Bay St. at King St. W.

When the photographer realized it was an individual lying over a vent, it was like a “punch to the gut,” he told me. “I was totally shocked it was a person.”

The man was completely covered under the sleeping bag, including his head. He had a coat and mitts on. Russell tried to engage the man: “Are you OK? Do you want someone from a shelter to pick you up? I can call a shelter.”

A reply came. Words to the effect of “No, I’m fine. Leave me alone.”

Russell took some pictures because he was so moved by the man’s circumstances and thought it was a photo Star readers needed to see. “I thought it was an important picture,” Russell told me.

The Star has no policy for photographers when it comes to taking pictures of homeless people on the street, but they try when possible not to identify them. It’s about being respectful.

Russell said he didn’t feel he needed to ask permission from the man to take this picture, because “there’s no way anyone would look at this photo and say this is Bob or Shirley,” or anyone identifiable.

A few weeks later, the Star’s opinion page editor Scott Colby was searching for a photograph to illustrate an op-ed about Premier Doug Ford’s new health care plan, which, the authors of the piece argued, negatively impacts the disadvantaged, including the homeless. Colby came across Russell’s “powerful and tragically beautiful” photo and decided to go with it.

But that evening, close to deadline, Andrea Macdonald, a Star print production editor, balked. Years ago she was responsible for choosing a photograph, a similar “weather shot” that showed two homeless men on the ground at spring time, one whose face was half visible.

The photo ran in the Star but was later pulled online after a reader complained to one of my predecessors, public editor Kathy English, that the picture was undignified and showed two people on the ground, “clearly not having been able to give consent for photography.”

For Macdonald the issues at play in her decision last week to flag Russell’s photo as problematic, pertained to the question of whether someone could identify the person in the snow, but also was the Star exploiting this individual?

“Was it a type of tragedy porn?” she told me she thought at the time. “There is a fine line. I’m not sure where the line is, but I wanted to be sensitive to a vulnerable person and I thought it best to err on the side of caution,” she said.

Colby said he has used similar photos to Russell’s in the past to illustrate articles when he thought it was “appropriate and not gratuitous” to do so.

Bruce Campion-Smith, the head of the Star’s editorial board, made the final decision last week to hold the photo because he wanted more time to better understand the concerns it garnered. He opted for a photo that shows a homeless person’s makeshift shelter, but no homeless people are visible. He told me he’s troubled that the replacement picture just doesn’t have the same impact as Russell’s.

While recognizing the significance of homeless people maintaining their dignity, Campion-Smith said he worries that “by not showing photos of unhoused individuals — photos done with care to avoid stigmatizing them — we risk allowing the crisis to go unseen.”

A very compelling argument, I would say.

Star editor-in-chief Anne Marie Owens said the question of whether to run pictures like these is a judgment call that requires thoughtfulness and sensitivity. She added that Russell’s photo is “a powerful image — arresting and profoundly disturbing certainly, but one that hits home the devastating impact of being homeless in Toronto.”

As public editor my take on the production editor Macdonald’s call is she went with an instinct that came from a good place. Her decision was sound. Still, the notion of not running Russell’s picture also leaves me a bit unsettled. I feel that by holding it back we might be tip toeing around what this man’s plight signifies for all of us as Torontonians.

Donovan Vincent is the Star's Public Editor and based in Toronto. Reach him by email at publiced@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @donovanvincent