Notes

The photo of Omran Daqneesh, a 5-year-old boy sitting dazed in the back of an ambulance after an airstrike in Aleppo last Wednesday, is in many ways very ordinary. The seemingly endless procession of suffering and despair playing out daily in Syria has been covered vigorously by The New York Times and other news organizations and is highly visible on social media. So what makes this photograph special? It’s a difficult question for even the most seasoned photo editor to answer.

Photo editors at The New York Times see images like this regularly — and we do not shy away from publishing them. The Syrian Center for Policy Research estimated last December that the death toll after more than five years of war had reached 470,000. The United Nations has placed the number of children who have died in the tens of thousands.

This photo is not ordinary. This photo is of a war torn country, split in half by government and rebel armies. The New York Times has covered vigorously but