Authorities have cautioned Kenyans and the media against posting and publishing gory photos and videos from the Ducit D2 hotel attack.
The New York Times however published some disturbing photos of people who were killed at the Thai-owned hotel in Nairobi.
The horrid photo, on New York Times article titled ‘Shabab Claim Responsibility for Deadly Assault on Nairobi Hotel-Office Complex’, shows bodies of at least three people inside the Secret Garden Café.
Angry reactions
Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) used the hashtag #SomeoneTellNYtimes to fire at The New York Times for publishing the horrid photo on their article.
New York Times writer of the article Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura was forced to respond after Kenyans rebuked the article for being insensitive.
Great to see you can write, but could you refrain from posting images of dead people in your article. Take this down! https://t.co/wv1JjYhAth— Brian K. (@TheKenyanBoy) January 15, 2019
I don’t choose the photos. Please contact our photo desk.— Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura (@kimidefreytas) January 15, 2019
Very disturbing images published by @GettyImages, accredited to @kabirdhanji, from the Riverside/Dusit incident. Others posted by @nytimes attributed to Khalil Senosi (for @AP) in an article by @kimidefreytas. Absolutely distasteful, disgusting and deplorable. An utter disgrace.
— Fadhili Kanini (@FQanini) January 15, 2019
As I’ve said, I don’t choose the photos. Please direct your anger to our photo department. Thank you.— Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura (@kimidefreytas) January 15, 2019
This is The New York Times’s position on why we published the photos that we did. I’ve deleted my earlier tweets that did not explain the reasoning behind our decision. https://t.co/kZBnaJLvqo— Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura (@kimidefreytas) January 15, 2019
We have heard from some readers upset with our publishing a photo showing victims after a brutal attack in Nairobi. We understand how painful this coverage can be, and we try to be very sensitive in how we handle both words and images in these situations. https://t.co/Qjm0qBMaF3 pic.twitter.com/1sqgTnnVKW
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 15, 2019
#KOT, were requested to “contact the Photo Dept.” at the @NYTimes about #RiversideAttack
Email letters@nytimes.com and help by asking them to account for and respectfully remove/replace their photo from their story.
cc @mbithi @PhilipOgola @saitonne @wgkantai @KuisanMacharia pic.twitter.com/oqf9rzZCWG
— Mark Kaigwa (@MKaigwa) January 15, 2019