After being challenged in court by CNN, the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed Saturday to back off its demand that “no photographs of the deceased be made by the media.”
As Terry M. Neal pointed out in this earlier column in The Washington Post, the policy mirrors the Defense Department ban on photographing flag-draped coffins of American troops.
Besides, it was a little late for the administration to try to sanitize this disaster. As Neal went on to say, “FEMA can try to hide the bodies from the public’s view. But the public will not forget.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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10 Comments
From NEWSWEEK–
“The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
“How this could be – how the president of the United States could have even less “situational awareness,” as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century – is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.”
Clueless George–out of the loop and yet continually loopy. It’s a dangerous combination . . .
No wonder they don’t want pictures of dead bodies . . . they can’t admit reality to themselves, why would they want America to see the reality of what they have created.
You voted to get gov’t off your back, folks, and now you want gov’t to help you out.
Doesn’t work that way . . .
Maybe considering the president’s recient performance, we should call him “George of the Bungle”.
Is it possible that the people finding the bodies don’t want the bodies to be seen on CNN because it would be the family’s first time seeing their relative dead?
Also, showing those bodies from a distance may cause some to question whether or not it actually is a relative.
I agree with NJC’s point.How would you like it if your deceased relative in a wheelchair became the Icon for FEMA & Bush’s failures?
I don’t think it should be outlawed by edict, although it’s about time that the media becomes at least halfway aware of what common human decency is all about.
This sensationalism at others expense is pure selfishness!
Years ago, when I worked at the paper, they had an absolute policy of not publishing pictures of corpses. I questioned that policy because it meant that many of the most powerful photos from Viet Nam didn’t make the paper. Now, I must admit to mixed feelings about it. Any picture that has an identifiable body probably shouldn’t be shown, but the press has no business sanitizing or denying the enormity and loss of life from this tragedy. We need at least some of those images so we don’t readily forget what happened there. Otherwise, it will happen again and again.
So far, the media have done well on showing corpses. I haven’t seen anything that wasn’t mostly covered or floating face down in the water. The only corpse I saw that didn’t have the face covered was blotted out. But I’m with Jed. I don’t want to see the death toll swept under the rug like in Iraq.
A point you’re missing is the media was barred from New Orleans. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t take pictures. What if there had been no reporters to show the convention center, the families where parents were separated from their families or show the desparate situation people were in?
Would you have believed everything was going great? After all, you’re up here, how would you know?
Although they focused too much on the looters, which was unfair for the majority of the people who just wanted to get someplace safe. These people arrived to their temporary home with a black mark of suspicion that will take time to erase.
Media has an important role when they aren’t sensationalizing everything.
I agree that the whole story needs to be told about the devastation, and it needs to be shown because the government dropped the ball; television news organizations do need to use discretion though. Showing covered bodies would be one way to accomplish both discretion and help to tell the story.
Government agencies should not be preventing the media from showing the deaths.
Has there been any other natural distaster in history where the administration banned the media from being there?
The Iraq war is similar. There have been more journalists killed by “accident” in Iraq than during any other war. Even Vietnam had less journalist casualties than Iraq.