Liberals, plug your ears and go "la la la" until the post is over.

[shirenomad]

But given what day it is, I feel it's appropriate to bring up a very good point from Instapundit...

THE PRESS WANTS TO SHOW BODIES from Katrina. It didn't want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public.

I can only conclude that this time around, the press thinks it's a good thing to inflame the public. What could the difference be?

...and Ed Driscoll...

I wonder if next time Hugh Hewitt has someone high up at CNN on his show, he could ask them, "In light of your decision to show the bodies of Katrina victims, do you think it was a mistake for networks like yourself to hide the images of victims of Saddam Hussein or 9/11? Really? Well, why didn't you at least show the latter on its fourth anniversary?"

Which is tomorrow, incidentally.

...and from the news media itself.

"The question is, are we informing or titillating and causing unnecessary grief?" ABC News chief David Westin told the New York Times just days after the Sept. 11 attack. Explaining why his network decided not to show any pictures of people leaping to their deaths at the World Trade Center, he said, "Our responsibility is to inform the American public of what's going on, and, in going the next step, is it necessary to show people plunging to their death?"

Comments

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

You know, it's interesting that this is brought up, since this is the sort of thing that my Psych senior seminar on death and dying talked about last Thursday: When is it necessary to shield ourselves from death and when should we show what's going on?

Thinking of the people during 9/11 who were jumping always fills me with a bit of anger. I can't stop associating that with the insensitive comments I heard from my peers that day...

Eh, sorry, no insightful observations or comments here.

[surgo.livejournal.com]

The difference might be that they were told they couldn't.

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

Having swung drastically right, they are now in the process of swinging drastically left.

Except you can't really call anything they do politically biased, because it all hinges on what kind of ratings they think they're going to get.

[wattsu.livejournal.com]

The press has always wanted to show bodies. It's the old adage, "If it bleeds, it leads". I guess we, as a society, have a sort of horrified fascination with death, which would account for the fact that a debate like this even exists.

Personally, I think that dead bodies are an intensely personal thing and shouldn't be shown in any circumstances, but this is just my opinion. I think the point can be made without sensationalizing it.