Controversial WH photo

What IS this particular issue?

 

"Controversy" "sparks" "protest."

 

"Some" "concerned."

 

Fact is, unless it's about battle plans or places with crucial access, the government shouldn't be restricting news organization on what they can and cannot photograph.

These wars are in the public domain. All aspects, unless it's about legitimate national security, should be open to the media. And while I fully sympathize with the families, it's still a news event. The press shouldn't have to ask for permission.

This press battle has been going on since photography was invented. When Lincoln was killed, a photog took a picture of one of the funeral areas where the casket was lying, open. The photo was from a distance away, but you could see Lincoln's face.

Stanton ordered a group of army guys to go to the photog and get all the plates and negatives of the photo and have them destroyed. And the photog, probably in fear of his life because Stanton was a 19th-century Alexander Haig to the extreme, gave most of them up. Yet a few of the plates somehow survived.

If that would have happened today, the photog would have told Stanton to go fuck himself. And rightfully so.

 

"Boy cries wolf! Who will think of the lambs?"

 

So, I guess all of the criticism during the previous administration was just political then:

 

I think the administration would argue that it was national defense. Most of the men killed were SEALs and some/most of them were from the SEAL Team 6 and showing photos of their families could endanger the family members.

 

Then that's how they should explain it, instead of some convoluted "The families didn't want it and we don't know the identities yet!"

 

I realize I'm probably a heretic for saying this - but I wish every family was treated with the respect the DoD demands from news orgs wanting to cover returns of soldiers remains.
Let's be honest - families in war-torn or famine-stricken countries, and even in some cases the US, aren't treated the same way by news orgs as military or law enforcement families. I don't know if it is just that the DoD has a PR operation that understands media needs and wants and shuts them down at the start or that a news org would catch hell for taking an "exploitive" shot of a deceased service member or police officer and win a prize for a shooting victim lying in the street or a child slowly dying of malnutrition.

 

I see no caskets, or even identifiable family members, in the photo the White House released.

 

How are you going to get an "exploitive" shot of flag-draped caskets coming off a plane?

 

When it shows up in the Obama nomination video