Wary of the self-detonation that often attends opening a Pandora's box, I vote today we nevertheless review a point and counterpoint raised recently by letter writers to this newspaper's Opinion pages.
Subject of the missives was the display in recent months of photographs showing Minnesota hunters, some young, with deer they killed. The images are a popular staple for a few weeks each fall on Wednesday's Star Tribune Outdoors page.
Similarly, during Minnesota's approximately three months of summer on the same Wednesday Outdoors page, we display photos of Minnesotans with fish they've caught. Again, short stories accompany the images detailing how the fish were brought to hand, whether they were released and, oftentimes, who accompanied the lucky anglers, and which lake or river yielded the finned trophies, large or small.
Published photos, per our requirements, must be tasteful, respectful of the displayed fish or deer (or other animal), and appealing in what they portray and how they portray it.
Ultimately, these images convey the life and times of a broad cross-section of Minnesotans, and, correspondingly, many readers find them intensely interesting, regardless whether they hunt or fish. I know this because participation rates are high — we receive far more photos in summer and fall than we can publish in Star Tribune print editions — and because the photos generate considerable positive reader reaction, again, even among people who don't hunt or fish.
I can also cite decades of observational experience originating in cafes, coffee shops, doctors' offices and elsewhere, during which I've watched readers, regardless whether they were the original purchasers of a Wednesday Star Tribune, page casually through the newspaper's various sections before finding the Outdoors page with its multiple photos of hunters or anglers and their "catches."
This page, to my viewing, is generally read intently over many minutes, and stared at a while longer.
Yet everyone is different, and certainly some people find the photos uninteresting or even offensive. Case in point: On Dec. 7, on the Star Tribune Opinion page, Bruce M. Olson of Minneapolis wrote, in part, "The Star Tribune ran photos of children holding weapons over dead animals ... If a group of young neighborhood children stood around displaying weaponry, would you publish it or decry it?"