Command restricts photos of dead US troops
TSO sent us this link last night from Congressional Quarterly;
The U.S. military command in Bagram, Afghanistan, confirmed Wednesday that it has barred reporters who embed with its forces from videotaping or photographing U.S. military personnel killed in action.
Several senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — including the chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, and the ranking Republican, John McCain of Arizona — said Wednesday they were not aware of the change in policy and wanted to find out more about it.
As much as I disagree with restrictions on the press by government agencies, journalists brought it on themselves with their abhorrent behavior in the case of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard whose final moments of life were sent out over the news wires.
His family asked the Associated Press to not publish the photos, yet they did it anyway. And then, the entire media engaged in an electronic circle jerk to assuage their widdle feewings. For example, although his newspaper didn’t publish the photos, Stars and Stripes ombudsman, Mark Prendergast felt the need to give AP a handjob;
It was a tough call, but the right one.
As hard as it may be to view that picture, especially for the Marine’s family, it belongs in the public domain as a legitimate piece of visual history in a conflict that as of this writing has taken 562 American lives in combat, with no end in sight.
It honors his death, and those of all others, by showing what it means to give one’s life for one’s country. It is also a testament to courage and comradeship. Two fellow Marines can be seen risking their own lives to tend to their fallen buddy under fire.
Suppressing or withholding the photo would have ill served the open society that the dead Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Me., gave his life to serve so well so far from home.
So, in the age of instant imaging and broadcasting, Prendergast sees no problem engaging in this type of snuff journalism. Especially, working for a newspaper that’s claim to fame is “The Independent News Source
for the U.S. Military Community”.
What choice did the military have to protect the good order and discipline of the military by restricting the bad order and indiscipline of the press.
If the Associated Press and the news outlets who chose to run the photos of LCPL Bernard had showed a bit of decorum, maybe they wouldn’t have had these restrictions placed on them. The government doesn’t usually regulate things that people and organizations regulate properly for themselves.
Of course, we can probably count on snuff pornographers in the media to cry and whine, but it’s their own damn fault.
Category: Media, Military issues, Terror War
It was a terrible photo anyway. It was out of focus and added nothing of substance to the article other to prove that the author was there and that she was willing to spit on a greiving family to get a few extra minutes of fame.
I was raised in the “shoe on the other foot” school of behavior. And I have to ask, what if it had been a JOURNALIST whose death had been plastered all over the news? How would they have reacted? Would the MSM have liked that? I’ll be willing to bet not.
BUT, on the off chance that I’m wrong, and journalists feel ok with broadcasting the death of their own (vultures), then I have a rifle that needs sighting in, and lots of ammo. Just point me to a journalistic target.
There are two general schools of thought on the First Amendment and the role/rights of the press. One school says that the press are the representatives of the people and therefore have the right to know and publish what the people have a right to know. The second school of thought ascribes some higher level of “right to know” and “right to access” to the press than to the people as a whole. This school gives more information to the press and also gives them the duty to act responsabily regarding that information.
Since time and again the press has shown the inability to act responsibly (except when it is the feelings of one of their chosen or the life of one of their own), I believe the first school of thought is the correct one. The people do not have the right to see photos of a brave young man dying a horrible death, thus the press does not have the right to publish such pictures.
I find it interesting that the press believes it has the right to show these pictures, but does not seem to feel that it should have the right to film and publish the deaths of felons receiving capital punishment – not that the judiciary is likely to cave even if they ask, but just saying…
So, Prendergast, the pic could have conveyed the “testament to courage” by focusing on the two Marines tending to their fallen buddy, without focusing on LCpl Bernard, right? So, the troll from the AP didn’t want to “convey” that bravery, and the AP didn’t want to crop the photo to spare LCpl Bernard’s family, they/she just wanted to get a picture of a dying Marine.
I hope that the units in the field refuse to embed the vultures from the AP, in the future.
This has never been about journalism, rather sensationalism and peddling carbon-copy anti-war rhetoric.
At the moment that photograph was published against the will of that heroes NOK, every AP journalist should have been blacklisted against returning to theater.
ROS:
You are thinking in common sense terms. We do not slap the hands of the offenders anymore. Our Starbucks and Mall Sale society want to see the sorry things that faux,(real journalists wouldn’t think of such slimy ways), journalists put out as “news”. But you are spot on with the “sensationalism and carbon-copy anti-war rhetoric”.
A sad incident that surely made a family’s grief that much more acute. Sad state of the day.
“Learned all I need to know about Islam on 9/11!”
I always wondered why I couldn`t get Stars & Stripes to cover any of the good things the VFW does here. Now I know. We never have any one to take photos of getting killed here…..
We send our tax dollars to the US government, and by extension, the military; we’re expected to slavishly support whatever the generals say; but we, the public, are too infantile to see the true cost of war? So do we have a free press or not? Or do we only have a free press when it’s convenient? Some of you like to ballyho American freedoms from the highest rooftop – unless it’s a little inconvenient or uncomfortable.
I extend my deepest sympathies to the family of LCpl Bernard, but havin gsaid that, there are bigger issues here.
By the way, this just off the wire: NEWSFLASH: FROM AP: US military backs away from ban on photos of dead
Except how is a photos of someone dying fall under freedom of the press when the family asked it not to be published?
The photos of those who have died in OIF/and OEF are open be seen. How is that not showing those who have been killed. Or what about the photos of those that have been injured?
Also this type of thing is not a new thing, it was used during WW2 as well.
Joe…being the sniveling,cowardly,mouth breathing, basement dweller that you are,we can only assume we won’t be seeing your sorry and lame, non-hacking, douche bag corpse in the media! The shame,the shame!
Yeah, you eloquent guys, like A Heroes Friend (a self-congratulatory, self-serving screen name if I ever heard one) have convinced me. The American public can’t handle it. They’re a bunch of babies. They need it to be sugar-coated. Screw freedom of the press – that doesn’t apply where the military is concerned. Only you big, tough guys and girls can handle it. We need you to protect us from reality……
Liberals invented sugar coating to protect their weak and worthless views of reality and they are the portion of American society that can’t handle the truth.Oh…and we do protect you from reality, because a dose of reality of how this world really is would leave you crying in a corner somewhere!!! It is time to grow the f88k up little one before the Boogie man gets you!
Joe
What about my question? You skipped me.
sporkmaster…Joey is so pissed off right now that he’s probably smashing is Legos and ripping up his Barry Manilo posters,not to mention pulling the heads off of his Barbie dolls.
Anybody seen Joe today? He was supposed to come over to my house and wash my car and then go and wax TSO’s back…just sayin’ I’m a little concerned is all…