Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Photographing coffins returning home
Somewhat related to a recent Senate vote, last night Rog emailed me to ask:
The following is an excerpt of my reply:1
Footnote
1. The original touched on some other tangential subjects, like privacy not being a conservative or liberal value and the whole debate actually revolving around attempts to score political points. I've also inserted hyperlinks into the original response as gmail doesn't do inline hyperlinks and didn't feel like breaking up sentences with URLese.
Comments(0) |
"You seem fairly conservative. What do you think of the fact that theywhich I interpreted as, "why are photos not permitted?" as news coverage is permitted and does happen (the news media can and does say, today "X number of brave soldiers who gave their lives for their countries returned home to Dover today" - you just can't go to Dover and film the process), but photos of the coffins are not permitted so without visual imagery, television stations are less inclined to run related stories. (Here's an associated article from last year's wapo)
won't allow news coverage of the caskets that fly into Dover?"
The following is an excerpt of my reply:1
My feelings on the matter is if the family is ok with the press taking pictures, then it's ok by me (freedom and the press and what not). But without expressed consent, I figure it's best to err on the side of caution with respect to the family's privacy, particularly as the family has not yet had time to have any sort of private ceremony. This is also partially premised on the soldiers and their families not constituting "public" figures whose right to privacy would generally be considered to be diminished.
I also feel that the motivations of those seeking to photo the caskets
are pretty base - seeking to exploit others' deaths to score political
points without regard to the families' feelings. The same point (the
human cost of war) can be much more effectively and tastefully
expressed in other ways without exploitation or privacy infringements.
For instance, Koppel's reading of the names of the dead or the various
beach side memorials both convey the same point without infringing on
any privacy concerns (and I dare say both convey the point far more
powerfully).
I also believe that if the caskets were being photographed, the
Defense Dept would be open to lawsuits claiming privacy infringements,
so there's a CYA aspect that's not being considered.
To summarize my point as memorably as possible, consider the following.
To appear in a Girls Gone Wild video, the girl has to sign a release.
Why should we treat our war dead with less respect than a college
co-ed willing to bare all for a t-shirt and free booze?
A mostly unrelated note - gender parity is here.
Footnote
1. The original touched on some other tangential subjects, like privacy not being a conservative or liberal value and the whole debate actually revolving around attempts to score political points. I've also inserted hyperlinks into the original response as gmail doesn't do inline hyperlinks and didn't feel like breaking up sentences with URLese.
Comments(0) |
