The always outspoken Helen Thomas writes in response to reader criticism of the Post "rare" decision to publishing an Associated Press photograph taken in Baghdad "of a critically wounded Iraqi child" following a US airstrike, and she wonders aloud why the traditional news media is reticent and more restrained today in its war coverage as opposed to during the Vietnam War when it's editorial decisions helped spread and distribute now iconic images--E.g., Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan street execution of a Viet Cong suspected member--that symbolizes the horrors and savagery of war. She correctly states:
Too often in this war, the news media seem to have tried to shield the public from the suffering this war has brought to Americans and Iraqis.It's not the job of the media to protect the nation from the reality of war. Rather, it is up to the media to tell the people the truth. They can handle it.
Read more here.
I think it's especially important today more than ever that the media fulfill its journalistic due diligence with photographs and videos as our society becomes increasingly visual and multimedia based. As Bill O'Reilly understands a video today can spread faster than any newswire.
Did you know that Helen Thomas' (who really is quite a remarkable lady) parents are Lebanese immigrants? I like reading trivia like that because they remind me how great our country can be and should aspire to be.