Federal Government Seeks to Block Photos of Dead

[songplugger]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 7:27pm

My heat is just so touched by the government's concern. It's just a simple matter of decorum and good taste to show only well-scrubbed Presidential photo ops (preferably posing with white people) and photographs of looting negroes!

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NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 6) - The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect."

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light.

The White House is under fire for its handling of the relief effort, which many officials have charged was slow and bureacratic, contributing to the death and mayhem in New Orleans after the storm struck on Aug. 29.


Updated On: 9/7/05 at 07:27 PM

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 7:38pm

I only want to see the flag draped coffin of one man - but he's not dead yet.

Guess who.

[songplugger]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 7:40pm

Would any American Newspaper be allowed to publish similar photographs today?


The sort of photos that might upset ones beautiful mind Updated On: 9/7/05 at 07:40 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 7:49pm

Of course the problem for the government is that they have not co-opted the press on this the way they do when "journalists" are "embedded" with the military in a war zone.

So, for now, they can pretend its a matter of decorum, until they figure out a way to completely censor the media. I have no doubt that they are working on that.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 7:54pm

this surprises you? This is the same government who doesn't want pix of American war dead shown either....because of course if it's not shown, it therefore doesn't exist....

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 8:19pm

I think it is all right to show photos of the New Orleans dead so long as you do not show their faces close enough to identify them individually. Everyone should know what happened there and what the risks are in life.

I also think there is nothing wrong with showing caskets of soldiers. They died; they are a fact. No hiding it. Very sad. Their faces in uniform should be shown in the papers with write-ups on each of them. To prevent the showing of photos of the caskets is an impingement on our rights as free citizens to the facts.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 8:23pm

And how odd, since they have taken the firm stand that the entire debacle is the fault of the Democratic Governor and Democratic Mayor of Louisiana. If they are so intent on revealing the LOCAL and STATE failures, why not underscore it with widespread shots of the dead (per Fox News tonight, who hammered home how the National Guard were waiting, the Red Cross was waiting, but that impotent white woman running Louisiana wouldn't let 'em in... They were standing around a pay phone, just waitin' n'waitin'...)

But if you want to see devasting still shots, check on this week's Time magazine. And the infamous Matthew Cooper wrote a cooly scathing analysis of the Bush paralysis. Also read the always astute observations on the President by New Yorker's David Remnick:

"...Suntanned and relaxed after a vaction so long that it would have shamed a French playboy, Bush reacted with fogged delinquency, as if he had been so lulled by his summer sojourn that he was not quite ready to acknowledge reality, let alone attempt to master it..."

Updated On: 9/7/05 at 08:23 PM

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 9:56pm

Fogged delinquency...do you think that's from the suntan lotion or the "suntan lotion" (as in Bushmill's)?

[zzannahk]

Posted: 9/7/05 at 11:10pm

there's nothing like some good old american censorship

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 12:01am

Give her time, I sure ol' Babs Bush will say that those dead people got a leg up on heaven and are certainly better off now, so no need to disturb anyone with images of their corporeal forms floating about in the dredges.