TaleWgnDg's Journal - Church fires photog over Scalia picture: Freelancer pay for 'right thing'

Church fires photographer over Scalia picture: Freelancer pays for ‘right thing’

by Jessica Heslam, Boston Herald, Boston, Massachusetts
Friday, March 31, 2006 - Updated: 01:24 PM EST

A freelance photographer has been fired by the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper for releasing a picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia making a controversial gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday.

Antonin Scalia gestures inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, Massachusetts
after the "Red Mass" that he attended
(Boston Herald exclusive photo by Peter A. Smith)

Peter Smith, who had freelanced for The Pilot newspaper for a decade, lost the job yesterday after the Herald ran his photo on its front page yesterday, Thursday, March 31, 2006). Smith said he has no regrets about releasing it.

“I did the right thing. I did the ethical thing,” said Smith, 51, an assistant photojournalism professor at Boston University.

Smith snapped the photo of Scalia flicking his hand under his chin after a Herald reporter asked the conservative jurist his response to people who question his impartiality on matters of church and state.

. . . snip . . .

The weekly Catholic newspaper made a “journalistic decision” not to run or release the photo, said Archdiocese spokesman Terry Donilon. “Because he breached that trust with the editor, we will no longer engage his services as a freelance photographer,” Donilon said.

“It’s nothing personal,” added Pilot editor Antonio Enrique. “I need to try and find people I can trust.”

While news outlets from across the country sought Smith’s photo yesterday, the archdiocese said there’s no proof that Scalia uttered an obsenity(sic) in the church. Smith said Scalia said, “To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” while making the gesture. That’s Italian for (expletive) you. “It was pretty clear,” Smith said yesterday. A Herald reporter who was nearby did not hear that utterance.

. . . snip . . .

. . . more at . . . http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional...

(bold-faced type emphasis and hyperlinks added by TaleWgnDg)

Caveat: The Pilot cannot "fire" a free-lance reporter since the photographer/reporter isn't an employee. Just to set the record straight. It simply may not choose to use the photographer/reporter's "free lance" services any longer if it so wishes which evidently is the case here.

1.) For more on this "bad boy" on-going Boston saga of our SCOTUS associate justice including Justice Scalia's letter to the editor (LTTE) that he FAX'd to the Boston Herald, please see this DU LBT thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Scalia allegedly stated, “To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” while making the gesture!

2.) For Scalia's "bad boy" tactics in Switzerland earlier this month, please go to this DU thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
(which includes an hyperlink to a video stream of his lecture, his following Q&A, and his brief interview . . . tis a rather lengthly stream but worth every patient effort particularly the Q&A where Scalia *dumps* for all the world to see)