A Picture Worth A Thousand Words, By Helen Thomas

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words
Newspaper Criticized For Publishing Photo
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist

WASHINGTON -- Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”

Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.

As the saying goes, the picture was worth a thousand words because it showed the true horrors of this war.

Neither side is immune from the killing of Iraqi civilians. But Americans should be aware of their own responsibility for inflicting death and pain on the innocent.

The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, said about 20 readers complained about the photo, while a few readers praised the Post for publishing the stark picture on page one.

Some mothers said they were offended that their children might see the picture, though one wonders whether their youngsters watch television and play with violent videos in a pretend world.

From the start of the unprovoked U.S. “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, the government tried to bar the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of American soldiers returning from Iraq. A Freedom of Information lawsuit forced the government to release pictures of returning coffins.

Howell said some readers felt the photo of the Iraqi boy was “an anti-war statement; some thought it was in poor taste.” Well, so is war.

Howell said her boss, Executive Editor Len Downie, “is cautious about such photos.”

“We have seldom been able to show the human impact of the fighting on Iraqis,” Downie was quoted as saying. “We decided this was a rare instance in which we had a powerful image with which to do so.”

It’s unclear to me why this was deemed to be “rare.” After five years of war, there is finally one photo that is supposed to say it all?

Howell said she checked hundreds of U.S. front pages on the Internet but saw the AP photo nowhere else.

This makes me wonder why the media have shied away from telling the story about Iraqi civilian casualties. News people and editors were more courageous during the Vietnam War. What are they afraid of now?

Who can forget the shocking picture of the little Vietnamese girl running down a road, aflame from a napalm attack? And who can forget the picture of South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan putting a gun to the temple of a young member of the Viet Cong and executing him on a Saigon street?

I don’t remember any American outcry against the press for showing the horror of war when these photographs were published. Were we braver then? Or maybe more conscience stricken?

Continued:
http://www.wesh.com/helenthomas/16190138/detail.html

(ON EDIT: no jokes)

Is it this one?

killed for no good reason, just shameful, we have lost our souls.

I don't have the paper anymore, recycling day was today, but I believe it was the same child just a different photo.

where is the picture? Maybe if we were a more reality based society, we would not be in this war.

The press was not bought and paid for by the military industry complex yet.

The photos mentioned would never run today.

With an embedded media they'd NEVER be allowed to publish a photo like this.

Tell 'em, Helen!!

:grr:




:kick: & Recommended

One of the earliest Iraqi images of this came vis a vis Mike Moore's film showing Iraqi women and families howling in pain over the loss of their bombed loved ones. Ugh

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4775808&page=1

"I was crying, 'My children, my children.' I saw the house destroyed. I did not know if they are alive or not."

When Hussein's father could not locate Ali, he said he began frantically digging.

"Everyone felt desperate and the police have left the scene, but I kept on digging. I told them I will not leave my son. I will take him out. I felt fainted after two hours of digging."

Although the parents did not mention it, they may qualify for condolence payments, which are made for death, injury or battle damage resulting from U.S. military operations. Such payments can range from $2,500 per incident to $10,000 per incident in extraordinary cases.
Fuck you ABC

Thank you Helen Thomas

GOD DAMN every American that supports this war and then turns around and says a FUCKING PICTURE of the FUCKING REALITY of this war is 'in poor taste'. I PRAY there is a hell JUST so God can damn every one of you motherfuckers to an ETERNITY of weeping for you lost child, an eternity of watching the life drain from them while you helplessly hold them in your arms and WATCH them die. I pray to GOD that you will spend an eternity drowning in the blood of the millions you were so willing to let die while turning around and crying over how YOU don't want YOUR children to see such a terrible PICTURE. Fuck you all and may GOD damn you to hell while you scream for forgiveness! You deserve all the pity you feel for all those dead Iraqis your warmonging, blood-thirsty, greedy, oil-grabbing piece of shit excuse for a human being you call 'president' is responsible for killing, which no matter how much bullshit lip-service you give to them is.... NONE! Fuck you, Fuck YOU, AND FUCK YOU!!!

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

:rant:

because "it won't matter"... need to read this post!! I'd like to slap them upside the head hard!! :grr:

Needs a thread of its own.

Excellent!

Death would just dirty up their neat little worlds.

they got all those 'concerned parent' calls as well. And to answer your question Helen, yes, we were braver then.

What'll ya bet that these same mothers are also those who complain about photos of women breastfeeding?

Breast-Feeding Cover Sparks Debate

"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.

These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine, yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains more support from the government and medical community.

Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo a baby and part of a woman's breast, in profile, inappropriate.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/28/national/main1844454.shtml

losing their jobs, i'd guess

Damn. We need to get grounded. Focus on what's real and important, and get out of that phony, pretend world they portray for us.

No more make-believe! We need the truth, no matter how ugly, shocking, gruesome, detestable or unbelievable it may be.

...and we need more journalists like Helen Thomas.