Media refuses to print grisly photos

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 11:17 PM on January 8, 2007.

This post first appeared on All Spin Zone.

During the Vietnam war, there were some key photojournalism moments that changed the course of the war by influencing public opinion. Here are three of them:

To some extent, the same held true in Iraq with the Abu Ghraib photos. The torture and suffering that America witnessed in those images were in stark contrast to what most of us feel are our national values and what we stand for as a country. Attitudes toward the war started changing when these photos were published. Yes, it is somewhat disconcerting that, despite ACLU lawsuits and a judge's ruling to release additional images and video footage from Abu Ghraib, the Pentagon continues to stonewall and hoard some of the most graphic photos and videos. Still, that's the government holding back the images, and (to some extent) I can at least understand the regime's resistance to releasing more damning evidence that only it posseses.

But what if a media outlet had...

... access to some damning photographic evidence of a Mai Lai-style massacre that occurred in Iraq, and was holding back the images, ostensibly so as not to damage the tender sensibilities of its readership? (In a moment, you'll understand why I use the term "ostensibly".) This past Sunday, the Washington Post buried a story on Page A14 that could certainly have a significant influence over the public's perception of future U.S. involvement in Iraq:

Capturing images of war on their digital cameras, as many troops in Iraq have done, Marines took dozens of gruesome photographs of the 24 civilians who were killed in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005… …Among the images, there is a young boy with a picture of a helicopter on his pajamas, slumped over, his face and head covered in blood. There is a mother lying on a bed, arms splayed, the bodies of three young children huddled against her right side. There are men with gaping head wounds, and a woman and a child hunkered down on their knees, their hands frozen around their faces as if permanently bracing for an attack. …The images are contained in thousands of pages of NCIS investigative documents obtained by The Washington Post. Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish… [emphasis mine]

During a week when George Bush is preparing to announce his strategery for escalation of U.S. involvement in Iraq, and on a day when five more servicemen were killed, the Post editors made a decision that they wouldn't publish graphic images of the war, either in their newspaper or online.

Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish. There should be red flags flying everywhere. Why is the WaPo holding back graphic images of a civilian massacre in Iraq? Could it be that they're trying to avoid controversy and outrage from the neocon howler monkeys if the images were to be made available? In documenting the tragedy of war, historically, images have been the most visual way to communicate the horror (and triumph) of battle. Since at least the time that the Magdalenian started etching images of the hunt on cave walls, mankind has been visually documenting battle, whether the battle was with with their food or their human enemies. A picture is truly worth a thousand words, particularly when it comes to documenting the horror of war. By making the decision not to publish the photographs from Haditha, the Washington Post editors are no better than the Holocaust deniers that recently met in Tehran. More importantly, if photographic evidence didn't exist of the Holocaust (or was held back, or destroyed), it would be so much easier for the deniers to claim that the Holocaust didn't happen. In fact, history could easily be rewritten. It's time for the Washington Post editors to make a decision. By holding back these images of atrocities committed in the name of the American people, the Post editors allow the atrocities to continue. This is particularly true in a week which decisions are going to be announced that will define U.S. involvement in Iraq for at least the rest of George Bush's term in office. If you run a blog, I humbly ask that you bring this story to the attention of your readers, and that you ask your readers to contact the ombudsman at the Washington Post:

Deborah Howell
202-334-7582
ombudsman@washpost.com

We deserve the truth. We can handle the truth. We must know the truth in order to make informed decisions going forward. I've emailed and put in a call to Ms. Howell - and will update if/when she responds.

Tagged as: media, iraq, vietnam, images

Richard Blair is the blogmaster of All Spin Zone.