America's mainstream electronic media have yet to broadcast images of the dead from Hurricane Katrina.
We're not sure why. By this time in the tsunami cycle, TV viewers were inundated with images of bloated, floating corpses.
No, we don't advocate death porn.
Yes, we do advocate an uncensored media. Especially when they practice self-censorship.
Reporters are delicately walking the line today. CNN reporters discuss refrigerated semi trucks outside funeral homes in Mississippi. But no official is giving them a casualty count. The numbers are too staggering.
People will be offended by images of dead Americans floating in cesspools. Let it happen. It's needed to fully tell this story -- and it will impact people in ways they haven't yet experienced.
The mainstream media, however, are screwed. If they show the images, some will call them ghouls and goremongers. If they continue to shield us from graphic images of death, they will not be doing their job.
2 comments:
Murder and mayhem in New Orleans' miserable shelter
"It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there," he told a Reuters photographer. 'We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq.'"
Ron,
If you want "graphic pictures", www.nationalgeographic.com has some of the most "down to earth" photos I've seen.
I love National Geographic... some of the best journaling in the world. They are the same people, who, on the night before the 2004 election were the ONLY news source that I found that said 2/3 of the automated vote-counting systems in country (which were responsible for 20 million votes) were run by a company owned in Austin, Texas. Who won that election?
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