TMZ Posts Pics of Frail Steve Jobs [UPDATED]

UPDATE 3: And the images were fake.

UPDATE 2: Leander here. I go to pick up my kids after school and all hell breaks loose. Two things:

1. TMZ’s pictures are very upsetting but there is clearly news here. Unfortunately, the images make abundantly clear why Jobs just resigned. If these images are real, they graphically demonstrate what we all suspected — that Jobs is very ill, and has resigned because of it.

The question is how we should have handled it. Posting the pictures is a no no. We had this debate when the National Enquirer posted pictures of Jobs earlier this year. We decided they were ghoulish and stayed away. News editors face these decisions all the time when reporting terrorist strikes, famines, disasters or other events that generate upsetting images. Usually they don’t show the most horrific, graphic pictures, but they don’t shy away from reporting the news either.

We work in a highly-competitve, realtime news environment. Decisions about what to post and how is almost always immediate, on-the-fly. It’s impossible to make the right call every time. That’s why news outlets with more resources than we have employ several layers of editors. On this blog, everyone is encouraged to post as quickly as possible — it’s the only way to stay competitive — but that means the editorial process is sometimes post-publication, as it is now.

2. As for the “staff writer” byline, I’m not going to throw the blogger here under the bus, but there is a good reason they post anonymously. In the past, they’ve been the victim of persistent trolls. We decided — with my full blessing — that some of their posts were better posted anonymously to deflect the knee-jerk negative attention they were attracting. That didn’t mean that all posts by this writer should be anonymous, but the system defaults to the settings that were last used, which may be the case here.

Lastly, I regret that we posted the pictures, and I apologize for it. I’m sorry we caused offense. We hold Steve Jobs in the highest regard and affection. We sincerely wish him the best.

UPDATE 3: There are a lot of calls to take this post down. It is very tempting to delete mistakes — just disappear them — but it’s crucial to maintain the integrity of the editorial archive. If we disappear stuff without explanation or notice, how can anyone trust what we write? In fact, we try to be rigorous about making changes to posts after they’ve been published, using strikethroughs to correct mistakes and editorial notes (‘updated’) to add new material. When we make mistakes, we need to correct them, not delete them.

UPDATE: Editor’s note: We have pulled the TMZ photo. We had posted it because we felt it had clear news value, but we understand they are upsetting pictures. Apologies if we offended anyone.

TMZ has a pair of paparazzo pics posted today showing a very gaunt, frail Steve Jobs being helped — or almost held up — in what looks like a parking lot. They are incredibly hard to look at.

We’re holding out hope that they are fakes.

The pictures are here. Warning, they are very upsetting.

Staff Writer

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