Talk:The Falling Man/Archive 1

Image Controversy
As the image discussed in this article is quite controversial (particularly in the U.S.), I'm not too sure about uploading it to Wikipedia, regardless of copyright status. However, there is a copy of the picture if you want to see it at [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/979766/posts] (which is also linked under the heading "External links" in the main article). Andrew 00:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm going to upload it, we have more controversial images at Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and more graphic images like Image:Nguyen.jpg. It would add significantly to the article. - Hahnchen 07:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a significant image that should be displayed in the public interest. It falls under fair use, therefore I have added a fair use rationale on the image description page. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It adds significantly to the article. I am not from the US, so I don't know too much about the controversy this topic generates there, but I would look at that image and see something far more poignant and moving than almost any of the 'standard' images that are used for 9/11.  The focus is the right way round here; most of the images of that day concentrate on the buildings, this concentrates on the person. SFC9394 19:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Our Fair Use claim or not I still think the AP is going to have issues, will see what I can do on that though. Our best chance of avoiding their ire is not changing the image with one of higher resolution and maintaining the credit caption wherever the photo is used.  --Wgfinley 23:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I had no idea there was as much of a controversy over the people who decided to jump as what I read in the article and the links. Very interesting reads. I think the photo is certainly important, the whole thing allows a perspective on elements of the collective psyche. Amazing how the media outlets were forced to quitely brush the whole thing under the carpet. Bobak 19:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It's very strange how the [media in the] U.S., the most influential advocate of democracy in the modern world, could censor such a striking image. It goes against the grain of its political ideals, in my opinion. For me, the photo represents the impossible decisions the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the upper floors of the World Trade Center had to make: either burning to death inside the building, or falling hundreds of feet to their demise. The picture reminds us of how fragile life can be. Andrew 00:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Andrew, it should be noted that the U.S. government didn't censor the image, just individual, privately-held media outlets, which engage in self-censorship all the time when deciding what stories to run and what stories to print. It had little to do with political ideals and a lot to do with media outlets wishing to avoid a negative backlash from consumers. -- Seth Ilys 05:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I meant to refer to the media, but after rereading what I've written on this page, I can understand why it may have been a bit ambiguous, as the wording is actually quite misleading. I'm not generally anti-U.S., so I apologise to any Americans who may be uncomfortable with the above comment. I've added what I should've said in square brackets. Andrew 18:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad that this image is on here. I saw the documentary on it just a couple of days ago, and I can't understand why people were against it being shown. I think the 'jumpers' were brave rather than cowardly... I don't think I could jump to certain death, even if I knew there was a probable death on its way to me. It's an important picture and memory of the day, and this man (and others like him) deserve to have their stories told. Mochachocca 22:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we know of any other documented incidents in modern times where people have willingly thrown themselves from doomed buildings? 88.111.104.48 02:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This wasn't the only person known to have 'jumped' from the towers. There were several others according to eyewitness accounts and photographs. This was one was the most clear photos. I just get irritated when 9-11 victims are treated with such reverence by the American media that pictures like this are considered offensive. Fact is that 3000 people lost their lives. They weren't all saints, some were probably crooks, some had probably saved a life, some couldve been perverts. --FK65 18:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The same could be said of your local graveyard. Out of the couple thousand people buried there - some were probably crooks, some had probably saved a life, some could’ve been perverts - most people are still respectful when in and around such locations.  It isn't so much to do with 911 as it is to do with respect for the dead - that is magnified many times (in any situation) where the people that died were innocent civilians.  On the many jumpers issue I agree.  This article only exists because there has been a TV documentary on the person and his death - otherwise it wouldn’t meet notability criteria.  SFC9394 19:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It happens all the time. The last one I remember was in a 2005 Paris apartment block fire, where at least one person died after jumping from a window. - LeonWhite 00:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

++++++++++++++++++++

Agent Orange says while 9/11 was tragic, this photo is horrible. Zooming in on the figure in the photo shows a nice little pixelated outline, which suggests this photo is an artifact of photoshop rather than of the events of 9/11. If it was a real photo, then there would be no residual outline whether it was taken with a film OR a digital camera. Seems like a bona fide fake/hoax to me and would be more properly displayed in the category of "Hoax Photos." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.247.224.74 (talk • contribs)


 * You must not have seen the hour long documentary that aired on UK TV on the photo a month or so back - this photo is one of about a dozen that was taken in sequence. If you want you can contact the photographer (Richard Drew of AP) and propose your theory to him and see what he says.  The squares you see around the man are jpeg artifacting - caused not by it being a fake, but by the fact that he is an irregular shape in the middle of a regular pattern - thus if the jpeg "quality" is set low enough then you get that blocking effect.  It has nothing to do with the photo being fake, and everything to do with it being of poor quality and resolution (which is by design since we cant use a HQ version or it might get pulled for copyright violation). SFC9394 09:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the channel 4 trailer reference as it was a broken link. Olzone 12:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Tonight, I watched 9/11: The Falling Man here on CBC Newsworld in Canada. This was the North American premiere of the documentary. It is my guess that a portion of us in the western world would not have even known the story behind it, yet we were exposed to it for the first time tonight, at least here in Canada (I would not know if CBC NEwsworld is broadcast south of the border, or if the documentary was or will be aired on another US Network and so forth). I felt that this should be mentioned, as a good portion of Wikipedia traffic is from the western world. I also mentioned how the documentary described the man as a symbol rather than just...a man and his life. -- Reaper  X  03:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The contraversy surrounding this article is predominantly NOT about the publication of the pictures themselves - it's about the manner in which the journalists involved allegedly harrassed 9/11 families, trying to get them to 'identify' jumpers. And about the attempts to initiate a rather tasteless debate on whether jumping from a burning building in which you are going to die anyway, constitutes suicide. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, chinese whisper syndrome, and the vested interests of 'The Guardian' (original article), and Channel 4 (the documentary), it is often now erroneously claimed that public outrage is directed at the images themselves and the fact they depict imminant death - rather than the somewhat fatuous attempts of the journalists in question to present the article as 'art' or worthy of serious philosophical debate. It is said that The Guardian received hate mail after the 'Falling Man' for treating the subject matter like a media studies essay topic. Negative reaction to the pictures when first published in the US before the later attempts to over-analyse the motives of the jumpers and identify specific victims, were actually not particularly prevalent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.98.19.89 (talk) 20:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * O ye of little memory. On the day itself, when message boards on the Internet were flooded (and many of them counting their members and desperately trying to track down any known to have been in NYC), those who posted or linked to that specific picture (or any of the related ones) were *vilified*. It had nothing to do with the question of suicide, only of pain, rawness, and a sense of intrusion into an incredibly personal, desperate moment. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.69 (talk) 14:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Insurance Policies
There is a statement in the entry that says that officials denied that anyone had jumped, because the officials did not want to invalidate life insurance policies. Can anyone cite anything to support that? I have a hard time believing that anyone who jumped from a burning and collapsing skyscraper would be considered to have committed suicide and thereby invalidate their life insurance. They took the final physical action that brought about their actual deaths, sure, but only after those deaths had been made certain by an outside actor. In other words, their decision to jump from the buildings was not the proximate cause of their deaths - it was the attacks. Think about the but-for causation test. But-for the attacks, the people would not have died. On the other hand, it's not true that but-for jumping they would have lived - they were going to die in either event.

Therefore they were murder victims, and eligible for full life insurance, I'd think - does anyone have anything to cite to the contrary? (Including, for example, something saying that an official made denials out of a mistaken *belief* that the insurance was at stake.)--TheOtherBob 07:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've removed the relevant sentence - if there is something supporting it and it should go back in, please let me know. --TheOtherBob 17:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have a strange feeling about the 'falling man' and other 'jumpers', since ever I heard about this. I can't believe that many of them 'jumped' intentionally, even if this seems to be an active way out of the death threat by smoke and burning. I imagine the chaos in the upper floors and people crushing windows to get air to breath and for hope to be saved from the outside. Doesn't it seem obvious that many of the fallen are pushed outside the window rather than decided to jump ? I had to write this down, because in all those many comments about this fact i never read about this possibility and which would change things quite a lot.


 * Not just pushed (and I'm guessing that's unlikely, simply because the offices weren't that crowded). When the temperature gets too high and the smoke gets too thick, your instincts automatically take over and force you to run somewhere, anywhere that's less smoky and cooler. You have no choice in the matter. It amazes me when people assume (and the main article here assumes it too) that every one of these fallers (and I use the word extremely deliberately) chose to jump after careful deliberation of the possibilities. I doubt any of them chose deliberately and calmly, and I'm guessing that a large majority were just following basic human instinct. -- Charlene 09:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Use in Literature
I have removed much of the section regarding a similar image appearing in Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud. Much of it was speculative, opinionated interpretation about the book and I feel it has no place in Wikipedia. --BrokenStoic 14:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Likewise I've removed the broken link to a nonexistent disambiguation page and mention of Safran-Foer's novel and reverted to "For the Don DeLillo novel see Falling Man (novel). While there might be mention of FM in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I hardly think people are coming to the page for FM when they intend to read about the novel -- besides that, it's already mentioned in the article so it's redundant. The DeLillo book, however, has the same title to a "see also" link at the top of the article is appropriate. Inoculatedcities 21:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

According to an interview I just heard on NPR, the author of the novel "Falling Man" did not know about this photo or at least did not know it had come to be known as this until after he had written the book. So the claim that the novel is "based on the photo" is probably not accurate.

NPOV
The final two sentences of the third paragraph in the first section have some problems at the moment:

"The ending of 9/11: The Falling Man suggests that this picture was not a matter of the identity behind the man, but how he symbolized the unthinkable atrocity of 9/11. Never had there been such a bloody, deadly,horrific and shocking attack in the 21st century."

The second sentence should be stricken entirely, and "unthinkable atrocity" doesn't belong at the end of the first sentence either. I'll leave it for a few days and then delete it unless someone disagrees. Matthew McVickar (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Question
Why is this article identified in the lede as being about the Esquire article, rather than about the photo itself? The photo is also titled 'The Falling Man', and I think it has more significance than the Esquire article describing it. The new lede should be something like "The Falling Man is an iconic photograph that was printed in hundreds of newspapers in the wake of 9/11. An Esquire article two years later added to its notoriety." That would make more sense. And then have the Esquire article in a separate section or page, if it merits it. Leoniceno (talk) 00:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilink to jumper
I don't know if this is appropriate as the Wiki entry for jumper is about people who commit suicide. Can we really categorize people fleeing flames as suicides? The deaths have been classified as "homicides" by the NYPD. Changing this re: WP:BRD. Open to discussion on this and the jumper article. Respectfully, RomaC (talk) 06:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It's inappropriate and the article explains why. Also, attempting to classify the individual in the photograph as a jumper doesn't take into account that the person could have been blown out of the building or fell, as no doubt some did. Additionally, attempting to say he was a jumper places an undue bias on the person in the image because it's a picture of a person falling and doesn't provide any information regarding the motives or reasons the person is falling. 74.131.104.227 (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This is strange, because the article about jumpers specifically states that it doesn't only mean people who attempt suicide. "The term includes all those who jump, regardless of motivation or consequences. That is, it includes people making sincere suicide attempts, those making parasuicidal gestures, people BASE jumping from a building illegally, and those attempting to escape conditions that they perceive as posing greater risk than would the fall from a jump, and it applies whether or not the fall is fatal." DavidFarmbrough (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Why Peter Cheney redirect
Why does Peter Cheney redirect to this page? Cheney is only mentioned in passing and is not a prominent subject of the entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmachenw (talk • contribs) 18:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is utterly disgusting
It is not right to have this disrespect for the young man who fell to his death in this attack. He deserves the privacy and respect inherent to all people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.175.68.172 (talk) 02:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point. The photograph is supposed to be disgusting, just like the famous photograph taken by Eddie Adams of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém, and of Miller's photograph of the Buchenwald Slave Laborers, to cite only two examples of photographs that are considered historically important. Real history is not something that is presented to you all sanitized and cheerful with a nice red bow and a fresh pine fragrance.  It's often ugly, repugnant, and gut wrenching, forcing us to reflect on what makes us human. In fact if you look at history, really look at it with warts and all, it's a sad and vicious tale, a far cry from the censored version we find in textbooks. Viriditas (talk) 07:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Lead

 * The photographer has noted that, in at least two cases, newspaper stories commenting on the image have attracted a barrage of criticism from readers who found the image disturbing.

This seems out of place in the lead section. Is there anyone who would not find the image of a man falling to his death disturbing? I think there's a way to note the criticism without resorting to "water is wet" statements. Viriditas (talk) 06:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The Ambiguity of "Impact" in this Context
"The Falling Man," although capitalized, may refer to the photograph, or the subject of the photograph, as in "The Mona Lisa." So, "Regarding the impact of The Falling Man ..." is an ambiguous start to this sentence (or a really cruel pun); it may signal that comments made by Moore will relate to the individual's physical impact with the ground, or, as is the case here, the significance of the photograph. In dictionaries, the first definition for "impact" is the one usually referring to a physical event. "Significance" is the closest synonym, although "effect" also fits. Another option is to delete "the impact of" and leave the sentence as "Regarding The Falling Man ...." Ileanadu (talk) 12:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Identity and Notability, Candidate for Merging
If the identity of this man has not been established, as is said in the beginning of the article, then why is a possible identity put in such concrete terms in more than one section? This is misleading. Also, are this picture and the person in it really notable, or is it just one in a series of thousands of shocking images of a much larger event, namely the hundreds of people that jumped?

A documentary can be made about anything, notable or not, hence we have YouTube and video blogs. The documentary about this particular image was not shown in the country in which the photo was taken for more than a year after the film premiered on British public television (and more than five years after the photo, itself, was taken), and even then, it was only shown on a paid television channel in the U.S., which happens to be a former co-owned subsidiary of the New York Times, which is solely responsible for the image's publication, in the first place. Furthermore, an article in Esquire does not a series of facts make, with such "academically-verifiable" articles as "Sexiest Women Alive" and "Dubious Achievement Awards" setting the benchmark.

The photograph of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém is notable. It has been used worldwide, is instantly recognizable, and holds a certain amount of infamy unto itself. At least a dozen non-fiction books have been written about it or used it as subject matter. It has spawned multiple documentaries with credible data. "The Falling Man" is rarely seen or mentioned, and, when exposed, is usually heavily-fictionalized, at worst, or presented with speculative data, at best. A caption with this picture alone is sufficient when the identity of the man has not been established, and he is among hundreds of others to perform the same act.

In my opinion, this photograph is hardly notable; we don't even have an article here about the documentary nearly five years after the picture made its heaviest impact on the global media circuit. It isn't even a very notable instance of self-defenestration in modern times; more than half of all suicides in Hong Kong are performed in this manner, and number much greater, annually, than the jumpers of 9/11. The only thing that makes this particularly notable, as I mentioned before, is the much larger event of hundreds of jumpers escaping fires caused by an even greater catalyst and the fact that this one in particular is the picture that was singled out of thousands for an article in the New York Times. This article needs at least ten more citations, as it is. I suggest it be merged to Casualties of the September 11 attacks, where it belongs. O sibili, si ergo! fortibus es inero. O nobili! demis trux! Si vats inem: caus en dux. (talk) 18:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm probably putting another nail into my coffin here if it is decided by a reasonable consensus that I am completely out of touch with reality, but the documentary, itself, refers to 9/11 as "the most photographed day in history" in its first spoken sentence. It's kind of hypocritical for me to argue against this article using the offspring of its subject as support for why the subject is not particularly important, but I'll freely admit I've started a crusade against The Falling Man, in general. At least I don't meatpuppet. :-D O sibili, si ergo! fortibus es inero. O nobili! demis trux! Si vats inem: caus en dux. (talk) 19:23, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added The Falling Man.jpg to the casualties page and removed the references to The Falling Man on both that page and defenestration as per WP:BRD. On defenestration, I replaced a sloppy citation needed template and a See: The Falling Man on the same point with a proper citation. On the Casualties page, I added a more detailed description to the image than just "The Falling Man", giving it some context, rather than letting it become the only way this photograph is known, as that will create a systematic bias in naming conventions, if nothing else. O sibili, si ergo! fortibus es inero. O nobili! demis trux! Si vats inem: caus en dux. (talk) 19:41, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Just one last point before I go off to do other things with my day, all of the data in this article about the photographer and the circumstances surrounding the photo can easily be summarized on its file page, especially in the copyright section, instead of using a vague template. There is really very little reason to giving this picture its own article, when the substance can easily be divided more or less into footnotes or trivia in other articles. The execution photo of Nguyễn Văn Lém doesn't even have its own article. Three sentences could easily take the place of this entire article, sans photo, and these three could be used on a disambiguation page to keep track of the photo, the Esquire article, the documentary, etc. Watch:


 * "The Falling Man" refers to a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, depicting a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:41:15 a.m. during the September 11 attacks in New York City. The subject of the image — whose identity remains uncertain — was one of over 200 people trapped on the upper floors of the skyscraper who apparently chose to jump rather than die from the growing fire and smoke. It appeared in media worldwide, but only appeared once in the New York Times because of criticism and anger against its use; six years later, it appeared on page 1 of the New York Times Book Review on May 27, 2007.

Voilà! Everything else is unrelated to an article about this picture, regardless of whether or not it is related to its satellite portrayals. Make a new article for that. The Esquire article is irrelevant, entirely, as it was a different picture used, and its author is known to have fabricated details in other articles, making his work not a reliable source. The references to the documentary can become a stub about the documentary, to which data can later be added, otherwise it isn't notable enough to be mentioned at all. The books mentioned in the article have their own pages, so linking to this one would be redundant. It's utterly useless to include speculation of who it may have been as content to the article. It's still a stub with all that cruft. Either there is a positive ID, or there isn't. We don't need to list every person ever supposed to be this man, and if we do, it goes into a list, not a detailed article.

Then again, I'm crusading. O sibili, si ergo! fortibus es inero. O nobili! demis trux! Si vats inem: caus en dux. (talk) 20:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

...and apparently brainstorming by myself. O sibili, si ergo! fortibus es inero. O nobili! demis trux! Si vats inem: caus en dux. (talk) 20:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Despite all that is said above, I see no reason to merge this with another article. Also, it is marked as a stub, and it does not seem to me to be a stub. KConWiki (talk) 23:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's only just been tagged as a stub. It clearly isn't one, so I removed the tag. --David Edgar (talk) 23:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I see no particular advantage to a merge either. That much of the sourcing is from the popular press is of no particular merit. Yes, Esquire runs some titillating crap. So what? It goes to the notability of the photo. If your argument is that the photo is not wp:notable, the existence of coverage in such press is a hard hurdle to clear. - 76.124.102.4 (talk) 02:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This photograph is notable because it is represents the very hard decision many people trapped in upper floors of World Trade Center were forced to make. Either die painfully by fire and smoke or jump and have a very quick death by jumping. It should not be merged and forgotten just because many feel disgusted looking at it. It's not ment to make anyone feel good looking at it. Overmannus (talk) 10:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, the photo of Nguyen Van Lem DOES have its own article, contrary to what user:Btmaisel said. In any event, I see no reason to merge this. The  photo does have interest in its own right and serves a function. I can well imagine people researching it or wanting to know more about the photograph. It has its own documentary.QuizzicalBee (talk) 23:53, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Who is he
What happen to his body? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.44.144.190 (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Richard Drew said today in an interview that he only wanted to publish this photograph when this person is unidentifiable. --Science politique (talk) 12:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Did you read the whole article? It's discussed there. The bodies of those who fell were not recovered. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

New article
I don't know if there's anything in here that is usable for the article (haven't read it yet) but this came out early in September. Millahnna (talk) 08:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Controversy
I'm really surprised that this photo is so "controversial". When we watched news coverage of 9/11 on that day, there was live film of people jumping from the buildings (some holding hands) and film that was taken from inside the buildings (before the collapse) where you could hear bodies hitting the ground. That was disturbing to watch and hear. But this is just a still photo. So, I guess the people complaining about it didn't see the larger news coverage of this event?

I know that in the days after September 11th, the film of people falling wasn't reaired on news channels, it just aired on that day as the cameras were rolling. No one knew what was going to happen. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Number of Jumpers
I have added two sources that say the number is less than 200. The fact is no one knows how many people actually jumped, some say 200, some say 100, some say less, some concretely claiming 200 people jumped in the lead of the article is just taking the opinion of one newspaper over another. The NY Times article says:

"Even now, there has been less fact-finding than guesswork. Some researchers say more than 200 people most likely fell or jumped to their death. Others say the number is half that, or fewer. "

And the Telegraph says:

"People jumped or fell from all four sides of both towers. USA Today estimated that around 200 people died in this way. The New York Times ran a more conservative estimate of 50."

So in my opinion I think my edit makes things clearer and is more accurate.Zdawg1029 (talk) 14:23, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Here is another source which I did not add to the article. It says that NIST used footage to count and that it was 104 people. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035720/9-11-jumpers-America-wants-forget-victims-fell-Twin-Towers.htmlZdawg1029 (talk) 14:36, 7 October 2013 (UTC)