GOODY TWO SHOES: Photosensitivity
Back in 2009, the MSM was clamoring to publish photographs of the flag-covered coffins of fallen soldiers, but now editors are debating whether they should publish “gruesome” photographs of Usama bin Laden. The Washington Post explains the dilemma:
The images are the very definition of news, but they’re also likely to be horrifyingly graphic, the sort of thing that American newspapers and television networks avoid showing their readers and viewers. …
People in the news media are faced with a related, if somewhat different, issue: Would such obviously newsworthy pictures be so revolting that they’d create a wave of complaints? …
As a general rule, American media organizations shy away from presenting images of death, especially the violent kind. Even in war zones or after natural disasters where thousands may have died, news pictures tend to emphasize destruction and the suffering of the living rather than corpses.
The violent deaths of newsworthy individuals, however, sometimes create exceptions. The New York Times, The Post and other newspapers ran photos of Saddam Hussein’s body after he was executed in Iraq in late 2006. The bloodied face of Iraqi terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was broadcast around the world after he was killed by a U.S. airstrike in the same year. And pictures of people leaping from the burning World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, were widespread.
But the deaths of Americans are usually a different story, says Fred Ritchin, a professor of photography and imaging at New York University. It’s exceptionally rare to see the body of a U.S. soldier, he said. And gruesome footage of the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by terrorists in Pakistan wasn’t broadcast by mainstream news outlets.
The issue is moot, at least for now, because President Barack Hussein Obama - who not only pushed the Department of Defense to allow soldiers’ caskets to be photographed, but also wanted to release thousands of photographs depicting alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan – has decided to keep the photos of bin Laden’s assassination under wraps, The Washington Post reports:.
President Obama decided Wednesday not to release photos of Osama bin Laden’s body, saying such images could incite violence and be interpreted as displaying “trophies” of his death, the White House said.
“It’s important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool,” Obama said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” program. “That’s not who we are. We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.”
Funny, but almost exactly two years ago to the day when the ACLU was in court suing to compel government release of the alleged torture photos – for instance, one purportedly showing a prisoner against a wall as interrogators appear to threaten to sexually assault him with a broomstick – neither Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder objected on the grounds that they would incite violence and endanger our troops. Two weeks later, Obama famously reversed himself, but only because he did not want to be embarrassed by the photos in the days leading up to his big speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009. That, plus at the time former Vice President Dick Cheney was hammering him on his national security naïveté on a daily basis.
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