Times Photo Policy

Shelby Coffey III, editor and executive vice president of the Los Angeles Times, on photographs:

“We see ourselves as a top-quality broadsheet newspaper. We are a different breed than the tabloids. We try to tell stories with distinctive, powerful photographs. Sensationalism is not our way. We make a judgment on each picture according to the needs of the story and our readers. We certainly do not want to put subjects in harm’s way. And we don’t want to put our brave photographers in harm’s way either, though they sometimes have been on occasion--from the Gaza Strip to the Sunset Strip to the North Hollywood shootout. But their hazard has been in pursuit of journalistic excellence, not high-priced prurience.”