Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/02/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I can't believe some of you people. It's one thing to say that it's improper for a government to give a medal or ribbon or fruitcake or whatever to a journalist. Who cares. It's one thing to say that a journalist should not accept a ribbon. That's a matter of ethics. Probably a minor one in light of the fact that you get a campaign ribbon just for being there. But it's quite another thing to characterize going into a war zone as an embedded journalist as some kind of "I'm a government b-tch" or "toeing the party line" exercise When all of you get off your fat sedentary ar$es and into a combat zone, you can talk about who's being cowed. For goodness sake, you're in an office or somewhere writing posts at 11am on a workday. You're not riding in a tank or a jeep, sucking down dust, getting shot at, or carrying tons of equipment. And frankly, it takes some major brass bearings to go into a combat zone at all - much less with a camera instead of a gun. I can tell you that were it me in a place where I didn't look much like the locals and everyone was shooting all around, I would want an M-16 instead of an M6. And I'm sorry - someone remind me of how Capa bought it - embedded with soldiers? Not like he was wandering around Asia by himself. And let's not forget that Nachtwey (put your tongues away) and his editor Weisskopf were themselves the guests of the military (that was a Humvee there were riding in). Your heroes Duncan, Capa, Smith, &c were all what they would call embedded journalists. And I'm almost sure that the controls on the press were just as tight in WWII, Korea or Indochina. If it weren't for "embedding" (new term, old concept), you'd be pretty lucky to have any coverage at all. Being embedded vs. not is not a matter of ethics - it is a matter of self-preservation. People aren't exactly breaking down the doors to do coverage without cover. This point of this is that you shouldn't dump on photojournalists because you hate the government. No Archive - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html