I guess it’s my turn. Kevin is most likely hungover after yesterday’s Chron editorial-dissection post, so I’ll tackle today’s offering. You see, the editorial board wants us to know that journalists are REALLY courageous for demanding that they be allowed to photograph corpses in New Orleans:
Taking a page from the Pentagon’s public relations playbook, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials last week refused to allow journalists to accompany rescue teams in search of storm victims in New Orleans and requested that the media refrain from taking pictures of corpses, ostensibly out of respect for the dignity of the deceased victims and the sensibilities of survivors. Journalism organizations immediately criticized the action as an effort to stifle graphic reporting and influence public reaction.
[snip]
Instead of trying to manage the news, FEMA and Homeland Security officials should have been reading and watching it.
Now journalists are performing a difficult and essential role in conveying to the American people the avoidable horrors of Katrina and its aftermath. Instead of obstructing their efforts, FEMA’s top officials should instead focus on their own failure to save the people whose dignity in death they now profess to defend.
Phew!
There is no group that is more thin-skinned than the media. Any perceived slight, inconvenience or criticism is called an assault on the First Amendment. At the same time, there is no group in America that is more self-congratulatory than the media. Media elites love to hail themselves as courageous — as if reporting or offering an opinion (as we know, those are often interchangeable) is somehow dangerous in 21st-century America.
As many bloggers have pointed out, the same media that filed suit in order to show dead bodies in New Orleans refuses to show images from 9/11. And John Podhoretz thinks the media has gone ’round the bend by pursuing this.
But it’s Laurence Simon who gets the final say — News Looters.
