Press Council criticizes illustration of the Lucerne Parish Bulletin
The Press Council has partially upheld the complaint of three CVP national councillors against the Cantonal Pfarreiblatt Lucerne. In February 2011, the Pfarreiblatt illustrated a statement on the weapons initiative with an undated picture of a boy putting a pistol in his mouth.
It was not apparent from the publication that the picture did not show a real gun but an ice cream in the shape of a gun. According to the Press Council, the Pfarreiblatt should at least have pointed out that it was a joke with water ice. Moreover, it is not acceptable to illustrate an article with a picture of a person taken in a completely different context without the consent of the person concerned. Anyone who willingly allows himself to be photographed at a public event at an art academy and agrees to the image being published on the Internet does not necessarily give his consent to the same image being used in a different, political context.
However, the Press Council does not consider the human dignity of the depicted child and the readership of the Pfarreiblatt to have been violated. It is true that the illustration of the report in the specific case appears inappropriate and tasteless. However, the picture of the child with the water ice does not impose itself on the unbiased viewer as a shocking image, but merely seems out of place in the context of the report "Church for protection against weapons".
