Sometimes I think it's lost in the debate just how free America's press is. I'm not sure if perhaps many of the people that comment that the government is preventing the press from operating, or that the media is just a puppet are from out of country or perhaps somewhat niaive. But as the this story demonstrates, the American press operates on it's own set of rules:
Quote:
WASHINGTON — A photograph and videotape of a Texas soldier dying in Iraq published by the New York Times have triggered anger from his relatives and Army colleagues and revived a long-standing debate about which images of war are proper to show.
The journalists involved, Times reporter Damien Cave and Getty Images photographer Robert Nickelsberg, working for the Times, had their status as so-called embedded journalists suspended Tuesday by the Army corps in Baghdad, military officials said, because they violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent.
New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira said Tuesday night that the newspaper initially did not contact the family of Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija about the images because of a specific request from the Army to avoid such a direct contact.
"The Times is extremely sensitive to the loss suffered by families when loved ones are killed in Iraq," Chira said. "We have tried to write about the inevitable loss with extreme compassion."...
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert Lobeck, serving as the Army's casualty assistance officer with Leija's family in Texas, said seeing the images of Leija on the Internet was very upsetting to the relatives.
"Oh God, they shouldn't have published a picture like that," Leija's cousin Tina Guerrero, who had not seen the images but was aghast about them anyway, told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday in Raymondville. She said the images would be especially hurtful to the soldier's parents, Domingo and Manuela Leija, who have remained in the family's home on the edge of town. ''It's going to devastate them," Guerrero said. ''They're having enough pain dealing with the death of their son."
(source link)
To be fair, the coverage of NYT Iraq correspondent John Burns (who exposed the media's deal that traded covering up negative stories in Saddam's Iraq for access to the country; a similar deal that occurs and still exists in Castro's Cuba) is excellent.
The New York Times had editorialized heavily against both President Bush (they have not endorsed a Republican presidential candidate since 1956) and both his domestic and foreign policy. Of, course that is, and should be their right, and I am be proud to defend that. However, they have generally shown a strong bias and irresponsibility in their coverage of the war.
01 Feb 2007, 11:55 pm
