WHAT's YOUR MAJOR MALFUNTION?
YOU WANT TO GO TO MOTIVATION PLATOON?
Posted on 09/04/2009 4:43:13 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates used the strongest terms in trying to persuade the Associated Press to refrain from running a graphic picture of a Marine taken shortly after the servicemember was wounded in southern Afghanistan, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here today.
Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard later died on the operating table Aug. 14.
The Marine’s family in New Portland, Maine, asked the Associated Press not to run the photo, which was taken by Julie Jacobson, who was embedded with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
The AP put out a series of photographs of the Marine patrol, and Gates objected to one showing Bernard clearly in anguish while being treated. He had just been hit in the legs by a rocket-propelled grenade.
When Gates heard the AP was going to send the photo to its subscribers, he called Thomas Curley, president and chief executive officer of the news service, asking him to pull the photo, Morrell said.
Morrell quoted the secretary as saying to Curley, “I’m begging you to defer to the wishes of the family. This will cause them great pain.”
Curley told the secretary he would reconvene his editorial team to re-examine the release. The secretary followed his call with a letter to AP.
“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family,” the secretary wrote. “Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to more anguish is beyond me. 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 American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”
Curley got back to Morrell later yesterday afternoon and said his crew had “seriously considered the secretary’s concerns and the families concerns … but ultimately decided that they wanted to proceed with pushing out this image to their clients,” Morrell said.
Morrell said Gates was extremely disappointed that the Associated Press did not adhere to the wishes of the family. The vast majority of news outlets did not run the photo, he added.
Bears repeating:
I agree. AP seems to have a problem understanding that No means No!! Families with loved ones deployed are sickened by the thought of having these vultures anywhere near our dear sons and daughters. I have two in the sandbox at the moment and I don't trust the dogs as far as I can throw them.
I do know in the past when one of my sons has had Time, AP, or rooters for the other side along for the ride I didn't sleep well. I feared our media while I disliked the enemy.
As for the AP, they are scum.
“intestinal fortitude” is not exactly the words that I wanted to use; this is a family safe forum after all.
“Testicular fortitude”?
Hunt down the photographer, blow his head off, take photos and send them to AP.
Sometimes, there is no nice way to solve a problem. Sometimes a problem needs to be destroyed.
close but still no cigar. Think of how a Marine D.I. at P.I.R.D. maght have put it in 1952 to a numbnuts recruit. Words that would make a New York Longshoreman blush would still be kind in comparison.
Wuss. If he had any balls he’d escorted every AP associated “journalist” to the base gates and told them they are on their own.
the NYT and the photographer justify themselves:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/behind-13/?hp
A journalism teacher of mine in college had enjoyed much of his career at the New York Times in the 50s and 60s. He posed this ethical dilemma to the class and wanted to hear our answers before telling us the proper response. This had really happened while he was at the NYT, he said.
SCENARIO: A photographer on the NYT staff is walking down the sidewalk when a suicide jumper leaps from a the NYT building. He gets a spectacular photograph, goes back to the paper, and hands it over to the newsrooms, right about the time they find out that the jumper was actually a distraught NYT executive!
HEAVY ETHICS DILEMMA QUESTION: Should the paper run the photo?
I hope your response would be the same as mine: Of course the paper shouldn't run the photo! Who cares who the suicide was; the photo shouldn't be published. Ethical dilemma resolved (as if there was ever one in the first place).
*AAAAANK!* Wrong answer!
Those noble, gallant, principled heavyweights at the NYT weighed it seriously, balancing journalistic integrity, and after great deliberation concluded that they had an ethical responsibility to run the picture and not hold it back just because the suicide was NYT employee.
That was their mindset and is how it was taught in journalism school a few decades ago, and probably still is. Cold, arrogant bastards.
Here’s the real reason the pic was ran”
“What remains to be seen is whether the publication of this picture has any effect on the broadening debate over American policy in Afghanistan”
Translation”
“We want to use this family’s grief to try to manipulate public opinion in favor of our agenda.”
They won’t show pictures of the horrific incidents of 9/11 or the pictures of the terrorist head choppers in action but they can’t wait to show pictures of a dying Marine or a terrorist a—hole sniper taking pot shots at our troops. What class!
They are “NeyKulturna!”
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