kleph
27-05-2005, 10:08 AM
The Los Angeles Times just completed a review of six prominent U.S. newspapers and the nation's two most popular newsmagazines during a recent six-month period and found almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action.
To measure how American publications have depicted the war in pictures, The Times reviewed six months of coverage from Iraq. The period from Sept. 1 of last year until Feb. 28 of this year included the U.S. assault on Fallouja and the escalating insurgent attacks before January's election.
Despite the considerable bloodshed during that half-year, readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post did not see a single picture of a dead serviceman. The Seattle Times ran a photo three days before Christmas of the covered body of a soldier killed in the mess hall bombing. Neither Time nor Newsweek, the weekly newsmagazines, showed any U.S. battlefield dead during that time.
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times printed the most shots of wounded in the war zone during that time — with 10 each, an average of one every 2 1/2 weeks. The other six publications ran a total of 24 pictures of American wounded.
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.
Many photographers and editors believe they are delivering Americans an incomplete portrait of the violence that has killed 1,797 U.S. service members and their Western allies and wounded 12,516 Americans.
Journalists attribute the relatively bloodless portrayal of the war to a variety of causes — some in their control, others in the hands of the U.S. military, and the most important related to the far-flung nature of the conflict and the way American news outlets perceive their role.
The Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-iraqphoto21may21,0,7031196,print.story)
kleph adds : : i think this story does a good job covering the issue but i would like to note one important point. the "censorship" occuring here - in almost every case - is due to the news organizations reluctance to print the images and not the military's insistance not to use them.
To measure how American publications have depicted the war in pictures, The Times reviewed six months of coverage from Iraq. The period from Sept. 1 of last year until Feb. 28 of this year included the U.S. assault on Fallouja and the escalating insurgent attacks before January's election.
Despite the considerable bloodshed during that half-year, readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post did not see a single picture of a dead serviceman. The Seattle Times ran a photo three days before Christmas of the covered body of a soldier killed in the mess hall bombing. Neither Time nor Newsweek, the weekly newsmagazines, showed any U.S. battlefield dead during that time.
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times printed the most shots of wounded in the war zone during that time — with 10 each, an average of one every 2 1/2 weeks. The other six publications ran a total of 24 pictures of American wounded.
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.
Many photographers and editors believe they are delivering Americans an incomplete portrait of the violence that has killed 1,797 U.S. service members and their Western allies and wounded 12,516 Americans.
Journalists attribute the relatively bloodless portrayal of the war to a variety of causes — some in their control, others in the hands of the U.S. military, and the most important related to the far-flung nature of the conflict and the way American news outlets perceive their role.
The Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-iraqphoto21may21,0,7031196,print.story)
kleph adds : : i think this story does a good job covering the issue but i would like to note one important point. the "censorship" occuring here - in almost every case - is due to the news organizations reluctance to print the images and not the military's insistance not to use them.