God no, we should have access to everything. War is far too sanitized nowadays. All we see is flags, yellow ribbons, one sided stories and patriotic songs. We never see mothers consider suicide because they lost their sons, or because their husbands were civilians who got killed by accident.
If people knew how bad war was, maybe we wouldn’t do it as much. Of course that opens a new debate, does that mean the ‘good’ (whatever that is) guys will not stand up to the bad people of the world as much? I don’t know. Dictators like Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein or Al-Bashir don’t give a damn about human suffering, but their political enemies might. But that is a different debate.
But the AP publishes pictures of living (and even injured) soldiers all the time. So I’d think the fact that he was still living strengthens their case, not weakens it.
Personally I don’t have any problem with what the OP did, regardless of whether the solider was dead or alive.
In my humble opinion, the AP didn’t publish the photo so people would be informed about war. They published it beccause they thought it would make them money. They are a for-profit organization. I, personally, am deeply offended and if I could figure out a way to negatively impact their profits, I would take action.
Take your prejudice to its logical conclusion–that everything the AP reports is driven by its profit motive–and you will liberate yourself from ever having to take seriously news reporting that challenges your preconceptions. Not that I think that you are out of practice at this already.
It was wrong to show the picture against the express wishes of the family.
We should show what war really looks like, but this young man was far from the only soldier horribly wounded/killed, nor is this picture unique. Why couldn’t they find a picture of this from a family who approved of the use of the image?
I think it was wrong (as I said above), but you’re kidding with this, right? I can’t recall a single picture of a (pre-medical treatment) wounded soldier in the past eight years. (Not that I’ve been looking, nor do I doubt that a few can be found.)
Even pictures of the return of soldiers’ coffins still raisesa dust-up.
I can’t even begin to see how? As noted in the links, the story accompanying the photo was fairly flattering to the marine and his unit, and didn’t really say anything one way or the other about the larger war.
Plus, I doubt that families of killed insurgents, Iraqi civilians, Afgan/Iraqi soldiers, Taliban, etc are asked before the bodies of their loved ones are photographed. Seems bizarre to make American Servicemen a special case.
The pictures of the memorial on base for Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard were very moving. So sad.
While I think the author/photographer has her heart in the right place, I am a mom and think that releasing the pictures to the public only pours salt in their wound. I, personally, wouldn’t do it.
Gracious, that’s quite an interesting conclusion you’ve made about me! I’m glad this is IMHO where a person can express an opinion and not be insulted!
I do tend to be quite skeptical of the news media–after all I’m nearly old enough to “Remember the Maine.” I do find it quite difficult to imagine that the AP high level conversations were totally altruistic.
In my opinion the second of these two conversations is more likely:
Option 1:
AP Executive One: The world needs to know.
AP Executive Two: But it will cost us a gazillion dollars.
AP Executive One: Yes, but we are reporters–We must do the right thing–who cares if we go broke.
Option 2:
AP Executive One: This is a shocking and tasteless photo, we should show discretion.
AP Executive Two: The world needs to know. And think of the money we’ll make!
AP Executive One: And we can always tell them we had conversation # 1 above.
I could, of course, be wrong. The decision could have been totally altruistic, with no monetary or political overtones of any sort.
You can’t recall a single similar picture to this in 8 years (nor can I)
The photographer risked her life in order to take these pictures during live combat.
The photograph shows marines heroically trying to rescue their wounded friend while under fire from the Taliban, when they could have reduced risk to themselves by leaving their friend until the fight was over.
Conclusion: there must be tons of similar pictures, and they chose this one just to upset the parents.
The media so rarely does its job (usually preferring to sanitize war), that when they actually do their job people are shocked and think something must be wrong.
Look, the fact is that the AP generally does not run photos of people dying a violent death, presumably because they think that it’s generally inappropriate, either as a matter of journalistic ethics or simple public acceptance. The fact that a minor fringe group like the HSF has different standards doesn’t signify much for me.
I don’t think the decision to run this photo was political. They don’t typically run photos like this any more than they run pictures of auto-accident victims. If I had to speculate, I’d guess that it got through mistakenly, but once the Pentagon made its appeal, they felt like they couldn’t back down, or else that decision would look political. But that’s just a WAG.
So why don’t you set aside your innuendo, Kimmy, and just tell us: Why don’t you care about car accident victims? :mad::dubious:;)
Surely there are other conclusions you can [del]straw[/del]draw, even sarcastically.
Let me clear: I don’t think the AP was wrong for showing the images; I think the AP was wrong for not following the wishes of the family.
Germane to this discussion, on tonight’s 60 Minutes they had a story on the war in Afghanistan. While filming, the unit was attacked, and they showed a soldier shot in the shoulder, then taken away on a stretcher. Not very graphic, but affecting nonetheless.
So, obviously, there are other instances (at least one, anyway) of a soldier being wounded in action on film. And, just as obviously, there is at least one instance where the soldier did not object to having these images shown. As it should be.
You’ll get no disagreement from me that the media prefers to sanitize war, nor that they’ve not been doing their job (for at least 8 years now). Which is exactly what spurred my response to Plan B (y’know, the one you quoted) that a claim about the MSM being “very selective” in an effort to be “biased against the US” has to be a fucking joke. I only wish it was the laughing kind of joke.
IMHO, the American public should have been seeing such images from the start; doing so in direct contradiction to the family’s wishes is just adding a personal insult to a societal travesty.
As I said, the picture is not unique. I myself have seen photos of soldiers (I’m using that as an inclusive term for all branches of service) wounded or killed that were taken during actual combat from the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These were not mainstream media outlets, but they weren’t obscure outlets either (specifically, medical journals discussing war injuries, how they happen, and how they are treated). Thus, I do not have to consider the possibility there aren’t a lot of such photos, as I have actually seen other such photos and therefore have direct experience of their existence.
War photographs should not be censored. War should not be sanitized, whatever the supposed reason (e.g. “privacy”). When someone joins the military they give up their personal life and their privacy because they are serving their country. When they’re dead they certainly don’t have any privacy anymore, since they’re dead.
Personally I think showing the world what war really means is a better way of serving your country than trying to hide what’s really going on.
