Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]What war? The war has been over for months - since May, I believe, when our flight-suited President, standing in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner hung by White House advance men, told us the war was over. So we're not talking about restrictions in time of war; we're talking about restrictions after the time of war, in the time of victory. And we're not talking about the media photographing war dead; we're talking about the media photographing peace dead. Or something like that. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Emanuel Lowi Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 5:20 PM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: [Leica] photos of war dead It is rather common for governments to restrict press freedoms in time of war. The theory behind this -- obviously -- is that the effort towards victory takes precedence over the public's right to get all the gory details in the heat of the moment. There's a hierarchy of needs or national interests at work, and it was ever thus. In the present case, the US public is getting news of deaths in Iraq. It is debatable whether they also NEED to see photos of the dead service-people being buried, as those images are likely to eventually undermine the efforts of those still on the battlefield. Those of you who are against this war, I suspect, are hoping for exactly that effect. But you'll need to change your constitution (I think) to have ultimate press freedoms taking precedence over the prosecution of this or other wars. It took some years of the Vietnam war before the US media felt the massive home-grown opposition to that conflict and started publishing pictures that eventually undermined the war effort -- and that may have been a good thing. It would be inappropriate for the press to make things work the other way 'round. Emanuel Lowi Montreal - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html