The picture of tragedy

SI cover was a tribute, not an exploitation

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours.

Sports Illustrated produced one of the most somber covers in its history last week. It featured an inset photo of a smiling Brittanie Cecil, the 13-year-old girl who died after being hit by an errant hockey puck, along with a larger picture of Espen Knutsen, the Columbus Blue Jackets center who took the fateful shot. I knew there would be a strong reaction from the public once the issue hit newsstands and mailboxes. I expected readers to find the cover touching and sad and powerful because those were the descriptions that jumped to mind when I first saw it. But misleading? Offensive? Tasteless? Those words never occurred to me.

Photographs by Chris Putman/AP and Pat Taylor/ZUMA Press

But those were the responses the cover elicited from some people, including some members of the media and Columbus general manager Doug MacLean, who said he was disappointed that SI chose to put Brittanie and Knutsen on the cover and suggested that the magazine was "exploiting" her in order to sell more magazines. I'll admit that I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because I happened to write the main story on Brittanie in the SI package. (Although I had no say in deciding what went on the cover.) But even if I hadn't been involved, I still would have been baffled by the small but vocal portion of our readership who found the cover objectionable.

The exploitation charge is difficult to support on at least two counts. First, the picture of a happy, innocent Brittanie that graced the cover is the same one that had appeared in dozens of other publications, on Web sites and television news programs following the tragedy. If anything, placing that photo on the cover increases the likelihood that when people hear Brittanie's name, they'll think of that lovely picture as much as the tragic way she died. That's more of a tribute than an exploitation.

Second, if boosting magazine sales had really been the only concern, SI might not have put the story on the cover at all. Such a downbeat cover is unlikely to attract more readers to a sports magazine than a predictable and celebratory Final Four preview cover. Brittanie's death and the issues of fan safety that it raised were more compelling and far-reaching than any sporting event, and the story was as deserving of the cover as any other development in the world of sports that week, if not more so.

It has been suggested on some of the radio interviews I've done and in newspaper columns I've read that placing Knutsen on the cover was unfair to him, that it sends the mistaken message that he is somehow to blame for the accident. He is not, of course, and the cover suggests no such thing. The headline on one column critical of the magazine read SI cover turns Knutsen into a second victim. Wrong. He already was a victim because he will always be remembered as the player who took the shot. That's not a judgment, it's a fact. The cover depicted two of the victims (but not the only two victims) of the tragedy. When I look at it, even though I can't even see his face, I feel almost as much sympathy for Knutsen as I do for Brittanie and her family and friends. Anyone who interprets the player's appearance on the cover as accusatory in some way is reading things into the image that simply aren't there.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that SI sometimes makes bad calls on the cover. Putting a shot of a wounded Monica Seles, taken just moments after she was stabbed by a fan nearly a decade ago, was one. The recent issue showing Charles Barkley breaking free of his shackles was another. (Although, in my opinion, putting Barkley's ridiculous and inaccurate statement about every black kid in America thinking sports is the only road to success on the cover was more offensive and detrimental to African-Americans than seeing Charles "unchained".) Sports Illustrated doesn't have a perfect batting average in choosing its cover subjects and photos. We're human and we sometimes make errors in judgment. But I haven't heard a single criticism that makes me think this was one of them.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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