Dead Americans
Someone called Plutonium Page over at Daily Kos wants to see more dead and dying American soldiers in the media.
The report claims, "A review of six prominent U.S. newspapers and the nation's two most popular newsmagazines during a recent six-month period found almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action. During that time, 559 Americans and Western allies died. The same publications ran 44 photos from Iraq to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during that same time."
She writes,
But she offers no further comment, and doesn't even bothering to inform us whether she regards these as legitimate reasons or not -- and if they are legitimate, how she expects things to be otherwise in the press.
The cry for more American blood in the media goes back to the beginning of the war on terror. She doesn't say how many pictures of dead Americans would satisfy her thirst for them. Nor does she say how many pictures of rape victims -- or actual rapes -- she wants to see in her newspaper. (Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.) Nor does she say how many of the 42,000 or so annual highway fatalities in the U.S. she wants to see in bloody hunks of meat in the pages of her local newspapers.
But it's unfair of me to say she wants to see these dead and dying U.S. soldiers. Their point, to her, is to teach the unenlightened "the true cost of the Iraq war." But "we" (she and the other Kos Kids) already know that cost, according to her. So it's to enlighten the ignorant red-state booboisie, who somehow didn't get the message, even after Michael Moore's Cannes-approved juggernaut painted it all over their hometown screens.
The attitude reminds me of the people who want to put pictures of aborted fetuses on picket signs, billboards, and even in family newspapers, so the rest of us can be persuaded to their position on this issue by an exposure to the "true cost" of abortion. After all, a soldier in Iraq volunteers to enlist, and knows the risks. The abortion opponents will remind us the pill of flesh in his picture had no choice.
The job of a free press is to inform citizens and to tell as much of the truth as it can through authentic reporting, while minimizing the harm caused by truth-baring. It's a tight-rope act some days, and graphic photos present that challenge in its starkest form. Just because you're the media, doesn't mean you print everything. Hometown newspapers have standards. You don't print names of child rape victims, for instance. You deprive your public of that much of the truth for a greater good.
At least one of the photographers quoted in the L.A. Times story agrees with "Plutonium Page."
Note, again, the odd pronomial shift of "we" to mean "you," a grammatical development that seems to be peculiar to the Michael Moore fringe of the anti-war left. Note, too, the twist in the moral certainty of his committment to gore. "If we are going to start a war ..." but what about the wars we didn't start? Do you not show the consequences of World War II, say? No Hiroshima pictures for Chris?
Some other aspects of the LA Times article Page omitted from her post were the fact that the papers it studied "have focused on covering memorial services for soldiers and stories about grieving families." Even to being excessive, in the judgement of some Americans, in playing up the dead and ignoring the living soldiers.
The pictures of smiling young men and women, alive in their uniforms, in the hands of blank-faced and sorrowing family members. The pictures of weeping widows holding the folded flag, with uncomprehending toddlers sitting beside them. These seem to me to drive home the price of a war, and to honor the sacrifice of the dead, far more than pictures of mangled bodies, which only make me angry at the editor who published them.
But it's not pathos that Page is after. It's not reinforced appreciation for the veterans and the slain. She wants death and dismemberment. Nobody's more bloodthirsty than a pacifist, when there's a point to be made.
The article also reports on an AP-sponsored survey of newspaper readers about pictures from the battlefield that showed that, even if "Page" gets her wish and forces all Bush-voters to stare at pictures of American casualties, not all of them will instantly swing around to her political ideology.
Which agrees nicely with another quote from the story: Fred Nelson, a photo editor at the Seattle Times, said, "[o]ur readers are incredibly intelligent. And I think they can figure it out without us sticking a photo of a bloody body in their face every time it happens."
But at Kos, they don't see us that way. And they wonder why we don't listen when they tell us how to vote.
We all know that the true cost of the Iraq war is downplayed by the American media, both in print and in photos. Today, the LA Times reports their findings regarding photojournalism during the Iraq war.
The report claims, "A review of six prominent U.S. newspapers and the nation's two most popular newsmagazines during a recent six-month period found almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action. During that time, 559 Americans and Western allies died. The same publications ran 44 photos from Iraq to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during that same time."
She writes,
Obviously, the reasons are complex. The article mentions that some imbedded photojournalists have been censored by the military units with whom they are associated; they are often told to turn off their cameras. Also, many of the pictures can't be published due to privacy reasons, namely if the soldier's identity can be recognized. Also, some photos are deemed too graphic to publish.
But she offers no further comment, and doesn't even bothering to inform us whether she regards these as legitimate reasons or not -- and if they are legitimate, how she expects things to be otherwise in the press.
The cry for more American blood in the media goes back to the beginning of the war on terror. She doesn't say how many pictures of dead Americans would satisfy her thirst for them. Nor does she say how many pictures of rape victims -- or actual rapes -- she wants to see in her newspaper. (Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.) Nor does she say how many of the 42,000 or so annual highway fatalities in the U.S. she wants to see in bloody hunks of meat in the pages of her local newspapers.
But it's unfair of me to say she wants to see these dead and dying U.S. soldiers. Their point, to her, is to teach the unenlightened "the true cost of the Iraq war." But "we" (she and the other Kos Kids) already know that cost, according to her. So it's to enlighten the ignorant red-state booboisie, who somehow didn't get the message, even after Michael Moore's Cannes-approved juggernaut painted it all over their hometown screens.
The attitude reminds me of the people who want to put pictures of aborted fetuses on picket signs, billboards, and even in family newspapers, so the rest of us can be persuaded to their position on this issue by an exposure to the "true cost" of abortion. After all, a soldier in Iraq volunteers to enlist, and knows the risks. The abortion opponents will remind us the pill of flesh in his picture had no choice.
The job of a free press is to inform citizens and to tell as much of the truth as it can through authentic reporting, while minimizing the harm caused by truth-baring. It's a tight-rope act some days, and graphic photos present that challenge in its starkest form. Just because you're the media, doesn't mean you print everything. Hometown newspapers have standards. You don't print names of child rape victims, for instance. You deprive your public of that much of the truth for a greater good.
At least one of the photographers quoted in the L.A. Times story agrees with "Plutonium Page."
"There can be horrible images, but war is horrible and we need to understand that," said Chris Hondros, a veteran war photographer whose pictures are distributed by the Getty Images agency. "I think if we are going to start a war, we ought to be willing to show the consequences of that war."
Note, again, the odd pronomial shift of "we" to mean "you," a grammatical development that seems to be peculiar to the Michael Moore fringe of the anti-war left. Note, too, the twist in the moral certainty of his committment to gore. "If we are going to start a war ..." but what about the wars we didn't start? Do you not show the consequences of World War II, say? No Hiroshima pictures for Chris?
Some other aspects of the LA Times article Page omitted from her post were the fact that the papers it studied "have focused on covering memorial services for soldiers and stories about grieving families." Even to being excessive, in the judgement of some Americans, in playing up the dead and ignoring the living soldiers.
On more than a dozen occasions, the Washington Post opened full pages inside the newspaper to print "Faces of the Fallen," with hundreds of portraits of those killed. The New York Times packed similar images into a single edition when the U.S. death toll reached 1,000. Newsweek ran a large color spread on a tank soldier weeping over the death of a crewmate.
The pictures of smiling young men and women, alive in their uniforms, in the hands of blank-faced and sorrowing family members. The pictures of weeping widows holding the folded flag, with uncomprehending toddlers sitting beside them. These seem to me to drive home the price of a war, and to honor the sacrifice of the dead, far more than pictures of mangled bodies, which only make me angry at the editor who published them.
But it's not pathos that Page is after. It's not reinforced appreciation for the veterans and the slain. She wants death and dismemberment. Nobody's more bloodthirsty than a pacifist, when there's a point to be made.
The article also reports on an AP-sponsored survey of newspaper readers about pictures from the battlefield that showed that, even if "Page" gets her wish and forces all Bush-voters to stare at pictures of American casualties, not all of them will instantly swing around to her political ideology.
In the unscientific survey, 59% of the readers said they would have published the Babbitt photo [showing a mortally wounded American soldier in Iraq].
"This doesn't tell me we shouldn't be there," reader Rose Barnett of Jacksonville, Fla., said of the photo. "This tells me that this was a brave and kind man to lay his life down for the freedom of others. God rest his soul."
Which agrees nicely with another quote from the story: Fred Nelson, a photo editor at the Seattle Times, said, "[o]ur readers are incredibly intelligent. And I think they can figure it out without us sticking a photo of a bloody body in their face every time it happens."
But at Kos, they don't see us that way. And they wonder why we don't listen when they tell us how to vote.
