{"id":2401,"date":"2009-09-05T12:17:13","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T19:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/?p=2401"},"modified":"2009-09-05T12:17:13","modified_gmt":"2009-09-05T19:17:13","slug":"u-s-defense-secretary-doesnt-understand-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/2009\/09\/05\/u-s-defense-secretary-doesnt-understand-free-press\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Defense Secretary Doesn’t Understand Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, an Associated Press<\/em> photograph by Julie Jacobson<\/em> of a mortally wounded U.S. marine sparked intense controversy<\/a> when the picture was released for printing in newspapers.\u00a0 U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates<\/em>, attacked the decision by Associated Press as\u00a0 an “unconscionable departure” from the restraint that most journalists have shown in covering the military since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.\u00a0 He went on to say in a letter to Associated Press<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Why your organization would purposely defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me.\u00a0 Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple newspapers is appalling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This public official clearly does not understand the function of a free press.\u00a0 He is a holdover from the Bush administration which was the most repressive in the history of the United States, going so far as to prevent any photographs of the caskets of our war dead.\u00a0 Journalists have been ’embedded’ with U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.\u00a0 Most of their photos stay well clear of the true nature of war.\u00a0 In fact, the majority of the journalism practiced in the theater of war since 2001 has been pathetically weak, looking as if it were all passed through some secretive military approval process before being published.\u00a0 Most of what passes for journalism really looks like nothing more than a military recruiting program.\u00a0 We see pictures of soldiers walking around, eating, firing howitzers, driving Humvees, or firing their weapons over a wall.\u00a0 We see very little of what war actually is.\u00a0 It is dead people.\u00a0 It is people blown apart.\u00a0 Bleeding.\u00a0 Screaming.\u00a0 Burning.\u00a0 Dead soldiers.\u00a0 Dead civilians.\u00a0 Dead children.<\/p>\n

Secretary Gates has no business attacking journalists for doing their jobs correctly.\u00a0 The subject of war is death.\u00a0 A photographer who takes pictures of soldiers walking around or shooting or eating in the mess hall is not taking pictures of war.\u00a0 War is death.\u00a0 You can only photograph war by photographing the dead, dying and injured.\u00a0 No other photographs count.<\/p>\n

The soldiers are very brave and do an incredible job.\u00a0 But they are employees of the federal government and work for the people of the United States.\u00a0 We have a right to see photographs of the true nature of our soldiers’ work.\u00a0 We have the right to see our soldiers when they are alive and when they are dying.\u00a0 It is truth.\u00a0 It is reality.\u00a0 Photojournalists are there to capture reality.\u00a0 Not what we wish would happen.\u00a0 Not what we imagine happens.\u00a0 They are there to photograph what really<\/em> happens.<\/p>\n

Why does Secretary Gates not object to photographs of dead enemy soldiers?\u00a0 Why doesn’t he object to photos of injured earthquake victims?\u00a0 For some reason, photographs of dead or dying U.S. soldiers are off-limits.\u00a0 Why would the primary outcome of war be off-limits to a free society that owes a great deal of its freedom and strength to a free press?<\/p>\n

Associated Press did the right thing.\u00a0 They did what journalists do.\u00a0 They reported what they saw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, an Associated Press photograph by Julie Jacobson of a mortally wounded U.S. marine sparked intense controversy when the picture was released for printing in newspapers.\u00a0 U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, attacked the decision by Associated Press as\u00a0 an “unconscionable departure” from the restraint that most journalists have shown in covering the military since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[375,615,49],"class_list":["post-2401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-afghanistan","tag-photojournalism","tag-war"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}