Eduardo - less of the gore, more of the humanity

A good example to kick off with (no pun intended) is last weekend's football talking point, Birmingham City defender Martin Taylor's leg breaking tackle on the Arsenal striker Eduardo.

Sky tv refused to show replays of the incident while the BBC showed it in slow motion and various angles on Match of the Day. The Sunday newspapers were equally divided some had gruesome action shots and others just the aftermath.

The Post's sister paper The Sunday Mercury featured a selection of images built around a gory picture of Eduardo in mid air with his shattered leg bone visible. While in The Post we used a picture taken moments after the tackle with Eduardo clearly in pain (but not showing the detail of his injury) also included in the shot is Martin Taylor looking on with a horrified expression on his face.

I can understand the reasoning for both. There is a human instinct to rubberneck at car crashes and although we may morally think it wrong to gaze at pictures like the ones of Eduardo's injury I defy anyone not to want to look, even if it is to go aaargh...how many people will have asked their friends on Monday morning 'did you see that awful tackle ?'

On the other hand the picture the Post used still expressed the horror of the moment and the fact that Eduardo was clearly in a great deal of pain (without using graphic gory detail) it also crucially showed Martin Taylor and his reaction to the tackle. Most of the action pictures show a faceless Blues player lunging into the defenceless Eduardo. The Post picture shows very human face of Taylor and his obvious distress at the injury he has caused.