Charles Apple

A man fled a burning apartment Monday in Basel, Switzerland. He was found perched on a window ledge, naked, by firefighters.

…And, unfortunately for the man, a photographer for Blick, a 275,000- circulation daily newspaper.

The Associated Press reports:

Worse, from the man’s point of view, Blick printed the photograph on Tuesday and quoted Markus Melzl from the Basel prosecutor’s office as saying the apartment was used for the sex business.

The photo ran on page one. And, for what it’s worth, the man wasn’t the only naked person on A1 Tuesday. I’ve “fixed” this page to make it a little safer for those of you at work:

Click here for an unaltered version.

Blick posted the raw (heh) photos themselves:

Blick reports:

Although yesterday the whole of Switzerland knows his butt, he is relieved: “Fortunately no one has seen my face!” His biggest concern is: “I hope nobody in my family recognizes my ass.”

Find Blick’s story — in German — and a photo gallery here.

(And thanks to Ernie Smith and Kathryn Morton for the translation tip. I had no idea folks in Switzerland spoke German. Which explains why Google Translate wouldn’t give me the option today to translate out of “Swiss.”)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 9:55 am and is filed under International newspapers, Photojournalism, Visual ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.