Dead bodies

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Mar 25, 2003 5:41 pm

OK, I know CNN is entertainment, but I am shocked (though not awed) by its jingoistic coverage of the war. I hadn't seen any of it until Sunday night, when Aaron Brown and others kept on castigating Al-Jazeera (sp?) for showing pictures of the bodies of American soldiers who, believe it or not, had been killed. At one point Brown interviewed Al-Jazeera's Washington correspondent about the issue. Brown was supercilious and sanctimonious and obviously thought he could put this guy in his place. As the interview went on, it became clear that the Al-Jazeera guy had a greater command of logic and the facts than Brown did. He remained perfectly calm in the face of Brown's hectoring. Asked why Al-Jazeera showed the video, he replied (more or less), "To show what happened." He also dared to point out that CNN has shown gruesome footage in the past of dead Americans in Somalia, dead Taliban in Afghanistan, etc. This time, of course, CNN took its cue from the military, which didn't want the video aired. You can bet their journalistic judgment would have been different if the generals had told them it would be a good idea to broadcast the video to show the world what nasty buggers those Iraqis are. The next day, despite all its ranting against Al-Jazeera, CNN started airing more of the video. Aargh!Now to make this rant somewhat relevant to this site: I'd like to hear how papers around the country are dealing with images from the video and with gruesome images in general.

Dyslexic · **Posted:** Tue Mar 25, 2003 6:27 pm

I've been watching CBC Newsworld more than CNN since CBC seems to have a more neutral and balanced perspective. In CNN's defense, Aaron Brown is the worst they have to offer. I'm an impatient person, and usually get irritated while waiting for Brown to finish thinking aloud. You are right; this forum is for discussion pertaining to copy editors, which clearly excludes CNN.The Edmonton Journal has shown the faces of the first five American prisoners of war, civilian homes that were destroyed by pinpoint-accurate ordnance, and US marines carrying an injured soldier. The injured soldier wasn't bloody, and not much of him was visible in the picture. I don't expect to see any gruesome pictures in the Journal.[ March 25, 2003: Message edited by: Dyslexic ]

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue Mar 25, 2003 9:18 pm

I have never understood the reluctance to use pictures that illustrate the stories they accompany. First exposure to such "policies" is usually with car crashes; we might write a pretty good story about a pile-up in which five people die, but heaven forbid that any of the pictures that run with it might include a body or two.In 1990, a big running story was the "necklacing" of African National Congress opponents. The paper I worked for refused to use the picture that showed an unfortunate victim of the practice in flames. The picture, by Greg Marinovich, won a Pulitzer Prize.In 1993, a U.S. serviceman's body was dragged along a street in Mogadishu, Somalia. My paper refused to use the picture, which certainly got across what had happened better than the accompnying story did. The picture, by Paul Watson (who later wrote an outstanding series of reports from Kosovo), won a Pulitzer Prize.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Wed Mar 26, 2003 1:40 am

My paper has a "no corpses" rule, and we broke it in Tuesday's paper by running the following photo on our inside-color war-photo page:http://www.krtdirect.com/visuals/preview.htm?doc=KRT/krtphotoslive/docs/074/189My boss put the page together, and when I saw it I pointed out that management might be unhappy with the dead bodies. He said that he'd take the chance and that the power of the photo to illustrate the sad state of the Iraqi army outweighed the rule.He also said, "We need to remind readers that we're killing people over there."For the record, I was very glad he went ahead and ran the photo. I felt obligated to raise the house rule, but I did so halfheartedly and have never been so pleased to be rebuffed. I think it's one of the most compelling images I've seen from the war, and we ran it with a cutline pretty similar to what the photog wrote.I didn't work today, so I don't know if there's been any fallout, but I was proud of my boss on Monday night.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:24 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Matthew Grieco:
My paper has a "no corpses" rule, and we broke it in Tuesday's paper . . . <hr></blockquote>I wonder how many other papers have a no-corpses rule. Aren't pictures of death part of war coverage? Think of the South Vietnamese general shooting a Viet Cong rebel in the head, the Spanish Republican soldier falling backward, arms outstretched, after being shot, etc. These are iconic images of war. They are not pretty.

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