Pictures of the Day: Israel and Elsewhere

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Photos from Israel, Syria, North Korea and Greece.

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The Tale of a Transgender 6-Year-Old Child Raises Reader Concerns

In Monday’s New York Times, an article by the national reporter Dan Frosch examined a Colorado case involving a 6-year-old child, who is biologically male but identifies as a female. The article used the child’s name, Coy Mathis, and two color photographs that showed her face clearly.

A writer from Spain, William Christian, objected to how The Times handled the child’s privacy, and raised some interesting and valid questions. He wrote:

I trust I am not the only person disturbed by the NYT’s article on a transgender child featuring a 6-year-old with name and photograph. I have no doubt the NYT did so with permission of the parents, but the child will live with this the rest of her life, and it should be her decision, made in the fullness of time and the awareness of consequences, to make herself a public personage, not that of parents, a reporter, or newspaper editors. Children can be cruel, and this child will find no escape from what you all have done together. Please think twice and think hard about this.

I spoke with the national editor, Sam Sifton, about The Times’s treatment of the child’s identity. He confirmed that the parents were fully on board with how the situation was treated. What’s more, he said, The Times was not the first to use her name or image. She had already appeared on national television and been prominently featured at events promoting transgender rights.

“We certainly think about these things, but in this case, there was no need for a vigorous discussion,” he told me. “We were not introducing this child to the world.”

Coy had already become “quite literally, the poster child” for the issues that are cropping up in schools around the country, Mr. Sifton said.

He makes a good argument. Once a child has been on set with Katie Couric, privacy issues are pretty much moot, although The Times should always consider its own standards as well. A more intriguing case would arise if The Times was the first major news outlet to use her image and full name. Even so, my sense is that parental approval, along with the child’s own willingness, should rule the day.

And I can envision other situations in which parents advocating for a child in this way - those with autism or Down syndrome, for example - would not raise these kinds of questions.

“Many people presume that there is something negative about being transgender and that’s not the case,” said Jeff Perrotti, a Cambridge-based author and consultant (and close friend of mine) who works with schools to support transgender students and their families.

As Mr. Christian rightfully observes, sensitivity is crucially important when children are involved in news stories. I can imagine situations when The Times might have to make some tough decisions that balance news gathering priorities with privacy concerns, but I don’t think the story about Coy Mathis was one of them.

Parading on the Edges

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“I love surreal-ness,” said Nicole Bengiveno, staff photographer of The New York Times, who photographed the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York on Saturday. “You have men in skirts, you have people with shamrocks on their faces â€" I kept snapping pictures of people with these funny hats and green hair. Because they’re just really in the spirit.” Followed by the freelance videographer Elaisha Stokes, Ms. Bengiveno demonstrates how, for the parade-going photographer, it is helpful to be drawn to strangeness. After all, if you have photographed as many parades as she has, an eye for the uncommon can be a gift. Likewise, a knack for sticking to the sidelines. “I lik to stay around the edges,” Ms. Bengiveno said. “I like the idea of being invisible.”

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More From The Times, and Elsewhere, on the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War

I wrote Monday about The Times’s relatively low-key approach to covering the Iraq war’s 10th anniversary, contrasting it to more robust efforts in The Guardian and to its own efforts on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Here are some further pieces that have appeared in The Times and elsewhere about the war.

* Room for Debate in the Opinion section is raising the question of whether the United States is better off after toppling Saddam Hussein.

* An article in the International section of Tuesday’s Times notes the “anniversary many Iraqis would prefer to ignore.”

* Erik Wemple’s blog in The Washington Post previews a CNN piece that will discuss the skeptical reporting offered by two Knight-Ridder Washington bureau reporters, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, in the run-up to the war.

* George Packer, in The New Yorker’s Daily Comment Blog, writes about a photojournalism exhibition chronicling the war in Iraq.

* Michael Calderone in the Huffington Post says the news media failure leading up to the Iraq war could happen again.

More From The Times, and Elsewhere, on the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War

I wrote Monday about The Times’s relatively low-key approach to covering the Iraq war’s 10th anniversary, contrasting it to more robust efforts in The Guardian and to its own efforts on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Here are some further pieces that have appeared in The Times and elsewhere about the war.

* Room for Debate in the Opinion section is raising the question of whether the United States is better off after toppling Saddam Hussein.

* An article in the International section of Tuesday’s Times notes the “anniversary many Iraqis would prefer to ignore.”

* Erik Wemple’s blog in The Washington Post previews a CNN piece that will discuss the skeptical reporting offered by two Knight-Ridder Washington bureau reporters, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, in the run-up to the war.

* George Packer, in The New Yorker’s Daily Comment Blog, writes about a photojournalism exhibition chronicling the war in Iraq.

* Michael Calderone in the Huffington Post says the news media failure leading up to the Iraq war could happen again.