Manchester attack: There is no point in blaming NYT for using leaked images

In a free society, leaks will always be one of the sources news orgs rely on for their stories

An editor’s first instinct is always to publish. And the news executives at the New York Times will not have had to think too long and hard about the ethical issues when images from the investigation into the Manchester bombing landed on their desks.

It would have been a very different matter had the leak been to a paper in Manchester or London, where the shock of what happened is palpable and the sense of hurt and harm is very close to home – even among journalists hardened to atrocities such as this. But even here, the imperative