[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yet the awful reality remains. As cruel as it sounds, those concerns should not guide the journalist's decision-making process; the press can't be solely beholden to notions of decency or compassion -- subjective, as they are in most cases -- when it has a duty to follow a story wherever it goes.

In other words, screw our wounded and dying service members---we've got to make our deadlines.

[allmost]

I see very few attempts at pictures of the recently freed terrorists from gitmo. They are deemed private from these sick SOBs.

[Dem Guard]

Do their principles extend to showing reporter deaths and mutilations as well should they be caught on film?

[lentulusgracchus]

When looking at the photo series, "Death of a Marine," I felt a heightened respect for the gravity of war. The pictures unquestionably added humanity and context to Bernard's death.

Garbage. It was a chance to put a high-wattage image on Page One above the fold.

Now, if I could recall a wanton penchant of the press to run photos of dead Marines, my reaction might have been very different.

Rack your brain, Einstein, and you may just recall the protracted running battle with the Bush Administration about photographing coffins coming home from Iraq at Dover AFB. Remember that one? Your wretched colleagues wanted propaganda images to grind into American families' faces.

Hey! Hey! LBJ! / How many kids did you kill today?!

Stop the war in ________, / Bring the troops home NOW!

It is also conceivable, of course, that I'm a callous journalist, willing to set aside all decency to quench my baser voyeuristic instincts.

DING! DING! DING! DING! DINGGGGG! No more calls, please, no more calls .....

It is unfathomable to imagine the anguish the Bernard family must feel.

Really? Do you actually care? No? Then why bring it up? It didn't play any role in the AP's editorial decisionmaking, obviously.

[crazyhorse691]

David Harsanyi tries to defend AP by invoking the highest principles of journalism while trying to ignore what journalism has now become.

[wastoute]

If only “journalists” had such concerns when it came to covering stories about Zero’s czars and his trampling our Constitution!

[rlmorel]

"...Why did The Associated Press -- and newspapers across the country -- run the controversial and disturbing images of an American Marine dying in Afghanistan?..."

BECAUSE THE MEDIA ARE SELFISH, ANTI-AMERICAN LIBERAL SCUMBAGS.

That's why.

[Carley]

Will the AP show the dead bodies of the civilians killed in the US rescue of a New York Times reporter.

[JTWildfeather]

Warfare is torture. It is the butchering of humanity, and considered the wickedest and ugliest experience of mankind; something no sane person wishes to indulge in. Certain images are traditionally withheld from the general public out of respect for feelings. Given the opportunity pandering media will entice the prurient interests of some for gain and profit of their sponsors. Since the public at large may be ready to view such material, what does that say about us, and to what level have we descended? -Vietnam Vet.

[MarkL]

But on the debate over the substance of these pictures, the press has one overriding question to ask: Do the photos help citizens better understand the story of the war in Afghanistan?

What it all boils down to is the political agenda of the AP. I can't ever remember seeing this sort of argument out of them for showing graphic photos of the remains of the victims of September 11, 2001. In fact, it seems that the media is doing all it can to quash any sort of photo or story that might anger the American public, and show us just who it is we're fighting, and what needs to be done to them to ensure an attack never comes again.

This is no different than Cronkite's "the Viet Nam war is now unwinnable" diatribe in order to try to swing the country's opinion against the war. And the AP doesn't care who they hurt in the process, as long as they further their agenda.

Mark