Glenn Reynolds makes a great point this morning. I can’t improve on it, so I’ll just quote it:
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?
The link is to a CNN story about how the network has gone to court to get an order requiring the U.S. military to give it access to dead bodies so it can film them. Quite a different attitude, wouldn’t you say, from the press’s reluctance to show us the full horror of the September 11 attacks? Remember, too, the press’ outrage when it wasn’t able to shoot footage of caskets of soldiers that were flown back from Iraq. Somehow a different standard applied there, also.
Scott Ott of Scrappleface has wasted no time parodying the press’ new-found interest in displaying victims:
(2005-09-10) — The Cable News Network (CNN), fresh from a legal triumph allowing it to televise the recovery of dead flood victims, today asked a federal judge to allow it to dig up and videotape any bodies buried in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“While we were petitioning the court to cover the recovery of corpses, some victims were hastily buried,” said an unnamed CNN spokesman. “Our viewers have a right to see the decaying flesh of each and every citizen who perished from lack of federal government assistance. That’s why the First Amendment exists.”
Via Power Line News.
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