Wednesday, June 23, 2004
A Line Crossed
Check out the photo essay Newsweek has on the MSNBC site.
It's a series of photos by Robert King--who spent a couple of weeks with the 1-124th Infantry in Ramadi late last year.
King was on scene just minutes after an ambush which killed two National Guardsmen in Sadr City.
There's long been a gentleman's agreement in the US press not to publish photos showing the recognizable faces of the bodies of US military dead, although it's been broken from time to time. The Army was really peeved last year at The Army Times for running just such a photo. (The Army Times, quite properly, in my opinion, told the Army to get stuffed.)
Newsweek breaks the taboo, though, in image #3 of that series.
I don't have a particular problem with it. I don't really know how I feel about the practice. That particular photo isn't all that strong, but some of the other photos are, and they tell a compelling story.
I'm not sure if photo #3 adds much to the story. If I were Newsweek's editors, I probably would have left it out.
But if it were in and of itself a compelling photograph, or necessary to tell the story, then sure, I'd publish it. The obligation is to the story and the reader, rather than to the Army or even the families of the soldiers in the photo.
But it's not a step to be taken lightly.
Splash, out
Jason
It's a series of photos by Robert King--who spent a couple of weeks with the 1-124th Infantry in Ramadi late last year.
King was on scene just minutes after an ambush which killed two National Guardsmen in Sadr City.
There's long been a gentleman's agreement in the US press not to publish photos showing the recognizable faces of the bodies of US military dead, although it's been broken from time to time. The Army was really peeved last year at The Army Times for running just such a photo. (The Army Times, quite properly, in my opinion, told the Army to get stuffed.)
Newsweek breaks the taboo, though, in image #3 of that series.
I don't have a particular problem with it. I don't really know how I feel about the practice. That particular photo isn't all that strong, but some of the other photos are, and they tell a compelling story.
I'm not sure if photo #3 adds much to the story. If I were Newsweek's editors, I probably would have left it out.
But if it were in and of itself a compelling photograph, or necessary to tell the story, then sure, I'd publish it. The obligation is to the story and the reader, rather than to the Army or even the families of the soldiers in the photo.
But it's not a step to be taken lightly.
Splash, out
Jason
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