'Today' shows controversial New York Post photos of subway victim

‘Today’ shows controversial New York Post photos of subway victim

By Meredith Blake

Dec. 4, 2012 12 AM PT

On Monday, a 58-year-old Queens man named Ki-Suk Han was killed when an unknown assailant pushed him off the platform at Manhattan’s 49^th Street subway station. It was one of those stories that strikes fear into the heart of every New Yorker, and the controversial image on the cover of Tuesday’s New York Post – taken by an onlooker in the last desperate seconds of Han’s life – only compounded the horror of the incident.

Matt Lauer opted to show the New York Post cover to “Today” viewers Tuesday morning, as well as a second image of Han from inside the paper. He explained he was sharing the “alarming” photos “only because police are now desperately looking for the man who pushed this man in front of that train,” although it’s not entirely clear how the photos could help in that regard. Lauer urged viewers to call the police if they knew anything about the incident, directing them to a tip line.

For his part, Al Roker seemed disgusted by the paper’s use of the photo, and by the “freelance photographer” who said that he tried to alert the train driver by flashing his camera.

“I’m sorry, somebody’s on the tracks, that’s not going to help,” he said during the segment. “Try to get them off the tracks,” he added, a hint of disgust in his voice.

Savannah Guthrie was more diplomatic, declaring that it was “hard to make a judgment of what someone does in a panicked moment like this.”

Their rivals at “Good Morning America” also covered the story but opted to show surveillance footage of a blurred-out Han and his assailant fighting before the incident rather than the controversial New York Post photo.

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