Something about photojournalists in rainstorms

In this photo, an elderly bicyclist crashes into an open manhole on a flooded city street in Shenyang.

Does that photo look familiar? Back in 2005, this was the image that circulated around online forums:

That earlier photo was taken on a flooded street in Xiamen by a photojournalist named Liu Tao. Here’s Liu’s justification for waiting to snap the photo instead of warning people away from the hole (in ESWN’s translation):

Someone saw me with the camera and asked if I was a reporter. I said yes. He said that there is a hole in the road and someone had fallen already, and that the media people should make a news report. I looked at where he was pointing to, and I only saw an area of water. I could not even see the road surface, not to mention a hole. Using my reporter’s instinct, I held my camera and waited there. Later, a bicyclist came down the road and he fell over. I took photographs of the process. The photographer’s profession is sometimes very cruel. It was wet and windy, and I stood there for almost an hour before I captured that scene. If I did not get this, I could not use a photograph to claim that there was a hole there. If I could not photograph the hole, the government departments will not pay any attention, and the hole won’t get filled. That would mean even more people falling when it rains. After I took the photos, I went to a nearby construction site and got material to post a sign there to warn people.

Later, photographs of two other victims turned up online, indicating that Liu may have had more than the public’s interest at heart.

Sina’s republication of the Shenyang photo has attracted over three hundred comments, mostly questioning the character of photographer Wang Yixin. Was Wang seeking evidence to convince the city to pay attention to its infrastructure, or was he simply lying in wait to snap a front-page photo of an impressive wipeout? And does it matter if he was?