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At 6 a.m. on April 19, Avram and a crew were standing in front of Duke Chapel, a dramatic building and popular backdrop for television broadcasts. Reporter Chris Cuomo was preparing to report live for “Good Morning America.” The team felt good about the story they were about to air. Using what they had seen of the photos, combined with other information about the case, they had created a minute-by-minute timeline of the party. Avram expected his sources to give him the photos later in the day, which would dramatically enhance the timeline story.

Just as the team was about to go live, however, Avram received a message on his Blackberry™ that NBC’s “Today Show” already had the photographs. “We had been falsely confident,” Avram says. While Cuomo went on the air with ABC’s report, NBC broadcast the photos for the first time, with the face of the alleged rape victim blurred—a common technique for shielding a person’s identity. Just as Cuomo went off the air, Avram received a new message on his Blackberry: an email from his sources with the photos included as an attachment.

What now? Avram had only minutes to make his next decision: Should he unilaterally choose to air the photos? Avram was in North Carolina; West Coast news producers were still assembling their morning program. Avram could provide the photos for the West Coast feed of "Good Morning America"; that way, ABC could share the photo scoop with NBC in the West Coast market. If he sent the attachments to ABC.com, the website staff could post them online in a matter of minutes. Avram doubted that anyone would challenge his judgment if he pursued either of these scenarios. But a slight sense of unease made him hesitate.

ABC policy—and his own moral convictions—called for withholding a rape accuser’s identity unless she chose to go public. To show a photograph of the accuser with her face blurred did not breach this policy, in his own mind, but on the other hand, he did not think ABC had ever done it before. He could see that others might argue the question differently. ^[26] Avram also knew that opinions might differ about whether the news value of the photos outweighed their unsavory content, or the fact that they showed the alleged rape victim in an unflattering light. In general, ABC News policy prohibited putting a rape victim “on trial.” Did a photograph that showed her performing an exotic dance, or in a state of apparent intoxication, cross that line? Avram believed that, under the circumstances, the answer was no. But he also knew he was exhausted from a string of 20-hour reporting days, and did not entirely trust his own clarity of thought.

Listen to Avram discuss why he decided to call Smith.
Length: 32 sec

Whenever an ABC news producer faced a concern of this kind, s/he was supposed to call Smith, head of the Editorial Quality Office, for guidance. At 7 a.m., Avram reached Smith on her cell phone, explained the situation, and sent her the photos.