Military censors images of casualties

It’s certainly not news that during this war with Iraq, images of deceased or wounded U.S. soldiers and marines have been disproportionately absent from the media. And since 1991, the White House has enforced a policy banning images of flag-draped coffins. While much of the discussion around this has focused on the issue of good/bad taste, what’s not to be missed is the subject of today’s NY Times article and accompanying slide show – that the military is censoring images that their own rules say are alright to publish, and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for photojournalists to cover the war.

Check it out: 4,000 U.S. Deaths, and a Handful of Images, by Michael Kamber and Tim Arango.

The article details the recent dis-embed of Zoriah Miller, a photojournalist who published photos of deceased Marines and Iraqi civilians on his website, and the cases of other photojournalists kicked out of their embed positions after photographing similar situations. The case of Chris Hondros, of Getty Images, is also a poignant one. He photographed a screaming young Iraqi girl, who’s unarmed parents had just been killed by U.S. soldiers (below). While he didn’t break any of the military’s rules, he was kicked out of his embed nonetheless.

Other photojournalists interviewed discuss difficulties in covering combat, and the restrictions of the military getting tougher, while they had much more freedom covering the Vietnam war. I wonder if the volume of images in the media of American casualties plays any role in the numbers that make up the anti-war movement. While polls show that most in this country are opposed to the war, not everyone has been motivated to action (I should also note that I hope we are equally as motivated to action by images of deceased or injured Iraqis as we are of American soldiers and marines).

Whether we are photojournalists or war photographers or not, we should all be concerned about an administration and military that have the power to censor as they please by citing something as vague and up to interpretation as “security reasons”, without accountability to anyone.

Photo © Chris Hondros-Getty Images