The New York Times recognizes Memorial Day in its own unique way, by mourning the fact that the Army won't let them publish pictures and videos of wounded soldiers without their permission.

On this Memorial Day, thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Readers of the Times know better, of course.

But even as the flags wave to honor soldiers past, much of the current campaigns go on without notice, because while troop numbers are surging, the media that cover them are leaking away, worn out by the danger and expense of covering a war that refuses to end.

Yes, wars owe it to journalists to end before the journalists get worn out.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.

Now we get to the Times' grievance. They can publish photos of a wounded soldier, but only with the soldier's permission. And they can publish photos of dead soldiers, but they can't show close-ups of their faces. This is what the Times considers a "Catch-22."

Ashley Gilbertson, a veteran freelance photographer who has been to Iraq seven times and has worked for The New York Times, (along with Time and Newsweek among others), said the policy, as enforced, is coercive and unworkable.

“They are basically asking me to stand in front of a unit before I go out with them and say that in the event that they are wounded, I would like their consent,” he said. “We are already viewed by some as bloodsucking vultures, and making that kind of announcement would make you an immediate bad luck charm.”

I'm not sure "bad luck charm" quite captures what the soldiers would make of the reporter. But isn't it telling that reporters want to publish photographs when they know the soldier in question, if asked to consent, would refuse? Ashley Gilberston continues:

“They are not letting us cover the reality of war,” he added. “I think this has got little to do with the families or the soldiers and everything to do with politics.”

This, of course, is the Times' position. The Army doesn't care about the press invading the privacy of soldiers and their families; it's really all about politics: the Army is trying to get positive coverage of its efforts in Iraq.

Maybe the Times has a point. Maybe it's because of the ban on close-ups of the faces of dead soldiers that the news from Iraq is so relentlessly upbeat--that all we ever hear about is terrorists killed, battles won, Iraqis protected from harm, schools not only being built but with girls attending them. No, wait...

The Times admits that there is, after all, some basis for concern about the press failing to respect soldiers and their families:

In February, a story and accompanying video by The New York Times reporter Damien Cave — and a photo taken by Robert Nickelsberg — that depicted the grievous wounding and eventual death of a soldier on Haifa Street, drew both praise and condemnation on Web logs and in the military about what constitutes appropriate imagery for the breakfast table. What some readers see as a gratuitous display of carnage, others view as important homage to the boots on the ground.

This self-interested description of the controversy is curiously sanitized. The Times reporter, David Carr, fails to mention that the Times not only violated the Army's policy in the case in question--apparently deliberately--it also published the photos and video footage of the dying soldier, Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija, before his family had been notified of his death. You can read about it here. And the family didn't exactly view the Times' action as a "homage to the boots on the ground:"

"Oh God, they shouldn't have published a picture like that," Leija's cousin Tina Guerrero, who had not seen the images but was aghast about them anyway, told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday in Raymondville. She said the images would be especially hurtful to the soldier's parents, Domingo and Manuela Leija, who have remained in the family's home on the edge of town. ''It's going to devastate them," Guerrero said. "They're having enough pain dealing with the death of their son."

Such concerns are, I suppose, beneath the notice of the mighty New York Times. The Times sees itself as locked in a struggle with the military--a struggle in which the newspaper's job is to make sure that Americans don't get their news about the war in a way that the Army would like them to:

James Glanz, a Baghdad correspondent who will become bureau chief for The New York Times next month, said that although he and others had many great experiences working with the rank-and-file soldiers, some military leaders seem determined to protect something besides the privacy of their troops.

“As the number of reporters there dwindles further and further because of the difficult conditions we work under, the kind of work they are able to publish becomes very important," Mr. Glanz said. “This tiny remaining corps of reporters becomes a greater and greater problem for the military brass because we are the only people preventing them from telling the story the way they want it told."

On this Memorial Day, the Times' biggest concern is that the Army's prohibition on showing the faces of dead soldiers, or wounded soldiers without their consent, means that their coverage of Iraq isn't negative enough.

I don't think they need to worry.

UPDATE: Best of the Web also takes Glanz and the Times to task.

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