Posted on 05/30/2004 8:17:58 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan
CHICAGO (AP) - It has been all but impossible to miss the widely circulated photos of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, which set off an all-out media blitz. And there are more images that have yet to be made public. But when is enough enough?
A recent CBS News poll found that while 55 percent of respondents said the prison abuse scandal is "very serious" problem, 61 percent felt the media has spent too much time on coverage, compared with 49 percent who said the same shortly after the news broke in late April.
Associated Press reporters in several regions of the country fanned out this week to talk to Americans about the issue, catching many people as they took time to sip coffee or settle down for a meal.
Several college students near Chicago bucked the national poll, fervently calling for more, or all, the photos to be made public.
They included Michaela DeSoucey, a 26-year-old graduate student in sociology at Northwestern University who thinks there should be more coverage of the scandal, not less.
"I think people are too afraid to confront what's going on beyond their coffee and muffin," DeSoucey said as she sat outside the Unicorn Cafe in Evanston, Ill., with her sheep dog, Mickey. "Maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me, but I think there's a reason they're being hidden."
Inside the cafe, Tom Graber, a 32-year-old math instructor at Northwestern, agreed that the coverage has been worthwhile. Because of it, he said, "my impression is that reporters have been more aggressive" about war coverage in general.
Others - no matter their opinion of the war - have had enough and are experiencing what you might call "abuse fatigue."
Leslie Johnson, a 27-year-old New Yorker who was stepping out of a Starbucks coffee house in Harlem on her day off, said she thinks it's "good for people to see the other side" of war.
But coverage of the prison abuse in Iraq has reminded her of the twin towers falling on Sept. 11, 2001.
"When 9/11 happened, they kept showing the buildings being hit," she said. In this case, too, she's "had enough of seeing it."
"You don't want to see people being humiliated," said Johnson, who works in publishing.
Jean Dorsainvil, a 52-year-old New Yorker who's originally from Haiti, said he's cut back on his consumption of stories about the prison abuse because he was starting to get upset at the United States.
"I started building hate in my heart," said Dorsainvil, a fire safety director for a Manhattan building.
He thinks it's important that people involved are punished but wants the media to stop showing the images. "If you keep showing the pictures, you inflame things," he said.
Even at the 35th Street Bistro in the Seattle neighborhood of Fremont - where it's difficult to find someone who supports the war - people were more than ready to stop seeing the images.
"I kind of just turn it off now. It's just kind of disappointing," said Jennifer Lim, a 35-year-old restaurant server who was dining at the bistro.
She also worries about its impact on the United States' image overseas - since she already found it to be low during her travels to southeast Asia and Mexico a few years ago.
Hal Abbott, a 50-year-old therapist from Seattle who sat nearby, agreed: "Politically it's hurt us a great deal in terms of our allies - and in terms of our enemies," he said.
Penny Walker, a 40-year-old from Houston who home schools her children, also is concerned about the impact on U.S. troops in Iraq.
"The media is how people get first impressions and by the media exploiting it so much - yes, I guess people need to know some of what's going on - but across the country and across other countries ... everybody's thinking all Americans are like that. And I don't think we are," said Walker as she ate eggs, bacon and toast at a hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas, with the youngest of her three daughters, 9-year-old Caitlin.
Steven Clegg, a 21-year-old mechanic from Cross Lanes, a suburb of Charleston, W. Va., agrees that there's been too much coverage. He's even found himself questioning the photos' authenticity.
But either way, he said the scandal was bound to affect people's thinking about the war, including his own.
"I still wonder what we're doing over there," Clegg said as he sat on a mall bench, watching his brother's two young children and feeding one of them with a bottle.
Still others say the coverage has had little impact on them.
Bobby Brevidence - a 33-year-old father of three serving up barbecue brisket, ribs and fixings at "Up in Smoke B-B-Q" in Hillsboro, Texas - said he hasn't had much time to dwell on the scandal.
He also said customers haven't brought it up much, either.
"Mostly, people come in here and you hear talk about gas prices," he said. Unleaded regular at the gas station next door was selling for just under $1.94.
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Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela in New York; Kristen Gelineau in Seattle; Bobby Ross in Dallas; and Erik Schelzig in Charleston, W. Va., contributed to this report.
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1% of the humiliation for the prisoners was when the abuse actually happened...99% has been from the media publicity.
Who gave permission for these soldiers to bring cameras into the prison in the first place?
All military prisons are secure facilities. Cameras, and all recording devices are not allowed in secure military facilities without written permission. Most everyone has a minimum "Top Secret" security clearance. Punish those responsible for the prison abuses, and those that compromised security with the use of cameras.
The idea that they would take polls on the coverage of this topic in itself is bizarre. If it's news, report it. It it's old news, drop it. What's the point of checking public opinion about it? (Rhetorical question)
Thank you, AP. Finally, at last I have the answer to the question that's been haunting me ever since the abuse photos went public -- what do sociology grad students think about it?
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