Readers,
Last Friday, the story “Hector Torres’ murderer receives 25 years” had two photos accompanying the article. In one of the photos’ captions, the family members of Ralph Montoya were confused as the friends and family of Hector Torres and Stefania Gray.
As the hearing ended, I was in a rush to get back to campus, and instead of taking the time to ask the people I had photographed for their identities, I asked the reporter for the story to identify who was in the photo.
This is how mistakes are made. Mistakes are how we as an organization, and I as a photojournalist, lose credibility.
Not only has our mistake caused stress over an already tumultuous topic, but in the future our word is not as strong as it had been.
I apologize for this.
Looking to the future, I have implemented a rule that no photo will be published unless the photographer has personally spoken to the subject, written the subject’s name down, and shown the subject his or her name written.
I hope that this, along with some intense vigilance, will keep the paper error-free from now on.
Zach Gould
Daily Lobo photo editor
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
