Afghanistan Photo: Some Big Media Still Failling to Do Their Job

by Deb Cupples |  In June 2004 -- a little more than a year after the Bush Administration invaded Iraq -- I was in a London hotel watching British news as I unpacked.  The story that caught my attention was about the Bush Administration's banning photographs in U.S. media of the flag-draped coffins  containing  the corpses of U.S. soldiers who had died in Iraq.

Obviously, some U.S. government officials had wanted us taxpayers to fund and emotionally support the Iraq war, but they did not want us to actually see some of the upsetting costs of that war.

I am reminded of the 2004 news clip by yesterday's flare up, after Defense Secretary Robert Gates whined about  the Associated Press's having run a photo showing a fatally wounded U.S. Marine in Afghanistan, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard.  You can see the photo at Editor and Publisher, which Greg Mitchell describes as follows:

"It was not a one-off bit of "sensationalism" but part of a tasteful and remarkable tribute package profiling the dead Marine and the experience of the photographer, Julie Jacobson, who was there to capture his final moments before he was gravely injured. He later died, three weeks ago."

It's bad enough that a publicly paid government official 1) tried to interfere with the First Amendment right to a free press, and 2) tried to persuade news media to shirk its moral duty to accurately inform us citizens.

What's worse is that some big and trusted media outlets did what Mr. Gates asked.

Editor and Publisher reports:

"Salt Lake Tribune, Boston Herald and The Portland (Maine) Press Herald, ran the AP story and some or most of the images, while purposely withholding the shot of Bernard being fatally wounded."

Huffington Post comments:

"Top papers such as The New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times carried the AP story, but not the image. The Post even ran an image gallery, without the picture. Later in the day, it did include the picture, with a warning -- and said it would not print it in the newspaper itself."

Among those papers that ran the photo -- instead of bowing to public officials' will to manipulate our media -- were the Honolulu Star-Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times.

It is no surprise that some media roll over like well trained dogs when government officials issue orders.

Back in 2007, Bill Moyers did a chilling show for PBS -- including interviews with top American journalists -- discussing the failure or refusal of many mainstream media to probe  the Bush Administration's questionable selling of the Iraq war to Congress and many of us taxpayers.  Below is a summary of what that show focuses on:

"How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? 'What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored,' says Moyers. 'How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"

War is not the only issue where many media defer to government officials.  Remember the discussions last year about the Wall Street bailouts?  Ex-President Bush and ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were begging God and everyone for $700 billion to funnel to the very Wall Street execs who had driven our nation's financial system -- and economy -- into a ditch.

A treasury spokesperson even admitted that the $700 billion figure had no math behind it: they'd just "wanted to choose a really large number" -- a sure sign that snake-oil was forthcoming.

For a while, media outlets referred to the greasy plan as a "bailout."  In September 2009, Bush Administration officials decided that "rescue plan" was a better term -- and many media actually changed their own vocabulary.

I suspect that we consumers and taxpayers would have better chance of getting truth and accurate reporting out of our nation's media outlets if ownership of media were not so heavily consolidated into so few hands. 

For more about media consolidation, check out Common Cause, the Free Press, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

Memeorandum has commentary.

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* Poll: Republican Voters Think GOP Politicians Out of Touch

* Investigative Film Makers Barred from China

* Polls: People Confused about Health Care Reform (Perhaps Because Major Players Want them Confused)

* Why Drug Prices are so High?  (GAO and Other Sources)