Report: U.S. to Block Media, Not Just Photos of New Orleans' Dead
Posted on Wed Sep 07, 2005 at 10:35:52 PM EST
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Update: Brian Williams of NBC:
At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.
Update: Blogger Bob Brigham reports by e-mail:
We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they're TV trucks around. Things are so bad, Bush is now censoring all reporting from NOLA. The First Amendment sank with the city.
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Original Post:
The United States of Repression acts again.
The U.S. government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.
This is reminiscent of the policy against photographs of the flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers. Anything that puts the Government in a bad light becomes taboo.
Update: If you're looking for photos of the dead in New Orleans, you can find them here and here. Warning: They are graphic and gruesome. View at your own risk.
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