By JIM BROOKS
The Nelson County Gazette
Monday, 12:30 p.m. — After returning from an early appointment this morning, I fired up my web browser and started one of my daily news reading sessions. My first stop was to follow-up on an issue that the Gazette has been following for some time — the controversy surrounding 5th District Nelson County Magistrate Jerry Hahn and the care of the horses he had on his Wilkerson Road farm starting about two weeks ago.
The Internet has been buzzing about the story for more than a week. I started getting e-mails soon afterward, asking me to look into the story. Neither the newspaper or the local cable TV station were touching the story, and neither seemed willing to do so.
The photos and videos posted by local, reliable sources were compelling. The Gazette’s first story was posted Tuesday, Dec. 15th.
WBRT covered the story later in the week, featuring Hahn on the 11-noon program for an hour-long discussion with station manager Roth Stratton, and comments from animal control officer Jon Ryan.
The Kentucky Standard’s story was published in the Sunday, Dec. 20th edition, with a headline that (in my view) seemed to trivialize the controversy: “Hahn tries to rein in controversy”
One of the individuals concerned with the welfare of the horses provided photos to The Standard. The photo that inadvertently ran in the Sunday print edition was the wrong one; it was not a photo of one of the horses involved in the controversy. The individual left a comment on the Standard’s web site calling them out on the error, detailing how she had given permission for the paper to use four photos, not the one that was published.
Earlier today, the newspaper changed the photo accompanying the story on its web site — the photo was the same one published last week by The Nelson County Gazette showing horses in a barn lot and an aborted fetus laying dead in the mud. The photo is graphic, but it showed the reality of the conditions in the barn lot.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the photos. Below left, the newspaper web site photo; below right, the photo as published by The Nelson County Gazette.
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While I don’t know this for certain, I believe I can reasonably conclude the photo was heavily cropped due to its graphic nature. Most newspapers have a standing though usually unwritten rule that they show no dead bodies in their paper (especially on the front page). The image of the dead horse fetus with its parent watching it as she dies is certainly graphic, but poignant. ( Dec. 21st, 11 p.m., NOTE: A sharp-eyed Gazette reader alerted me to the fact the newspaper *does* in fact run photos of dead animals — in the sports section. Every fall, the newspaper runs photos of youths and adults posed with a deer they have shot and killed. Point taken.)
This story has attracted a huge amount of interest, both locally and around the region. At last count, one of several message threads on a popular internet discussion site had nearly 500 comments on the issue.
The newspaper swapped out the wrong photo with one cropped so heavily it lost its meaning — that the horses were in bad shape physically and overcrowded in that barn lot.
I understand the newspaper’s editorial decision; unfortunately few of those who notice the different photo on its web site — particularly those who are passionate about these animals — will probably understand why the newspaper cropped the photo so tightly. Taking in consideration the deliberate play on words in the headline, the paper’s apparent hesitancy to cover this story (which would give legitimacy to a story that started out on that darn Internet thing) and the intentional cropping job on the corrected photo, readers will likely assume the newspaper took the attitude that this whole thing was much ado about nothing. Cropping the photo alone makes it appear the paper is exhibiting bias in Hahn’s favor.
But is it bias? Probably not. The newspaper has its standards, and graphic photos are one of those areas where editors make the call based on their judgment. Agree or not, it is their call.
But agree or not, it is the reader’s call on why they believe the newspaper seemingly avoided this story as long as it did, and when it did cover it, created the impression of soft-peddling a story that involves an elected county official.
Perception is reality. 
