Just a different point of view...

bmattock

bmattock

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I liked reading this op-ed piece in a Canadian newspaper. I don't know that I agree with the author's conclusion, but I have to agree with his premise - that the media must be free to report the news.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=15&cat=48&id=638127&more=

You can't stop the news from coming out
By DALE BASS
Apr 28 2006
Got some interesting fan mail from last week's column.
One reader objected to the column about my sister and adoption.
"Pleeeze," he implored (his spelling). "Give us a break."
While the reader may not have liked it, I'm sure the person read it all - and that shows the influence, however slight, the media can have on society.
There are times when we write about things others don't want to read.
And there are times when we write about things others need to read, even if they don't want to do so.
It can be something as insignificant as the impact of adoption or so monumental it can change society.
It's something Prime Minster Stephen Harper obviously knows, since he banned media from covering the return of four fallen soldiers, young Canadians whose sacrifices weren't even honoured with federal government flags being lowered to half-mast.
Shrewd man, that Harper.
Maybe he's learned that, at any given time, a photographer in the right place can capture a defining moment.
It happened with Eddie Adams, a name many likely don't recognize.
But, if you're of the generation that lived through the Vietnam War, you'll know his photograph.
Adams was in Vietnam in 1968, a return trip to cover the upcoming Tet Offensive.
He was walking through abandoned streets when he watched two Vietnamese soldiers pull a prisoner from a doorway. They tied his hands behind his back, took him to where Adams and a fellow journalist were standing, stopped and shot the man in the head.
All this happened with Adams working his camera.
Horst Faas, the Associated Press photo editor who processed that role of film, later said, "I saw what I had never seen before on the lightbox of my Saigon editing desk: The perfect newspicture - the perfectly framed and exposed frozen moment of an event which I felt instantly would become representative of the brutality of the Vietnam Aar."
Adam's friend, Nick Ut, is another photographer many won't recognize, but many of us have seen his seminal Vietnam photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down the road, naked and screaming from napalm burns.
Life magazine editors later said the 1972 picture "made American conscious of the full horror of the Vietnam War."
We've seen Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of a dead student protester at Kent State University.
Ronald Haeberle brought the horror of My Lai, South Vietnam, to the public's attention.
Fast-forward to recent times.
Is there anyone who has not been horrified by the photograph of a female American soldier torturing a naked prisoner at the Abu Ghraib prison?
So it's a deliberate act by Harper to keep the media away.
No doubt he thinks it might insulate him from reaction to these needless deaths.
No grieving families standing by as the remains of their sons are off-loaded.
No salutes from comrades safe in Canada, wondering when it will be their turn to head to one of the black holes being fuelled by President George W. Bush's messianical need to save the world.
Control the messenger and you'll control the message.
Too bad for Harper that it won't work.
You can't stop the news from coming out; all you can do is perhaps postpone it.
Throw up some hurdles and it just doubles the journalist's cynical resolve.
Tell people they can't see something and they'll picture it in their minds.
Sometime soon, someone will photograph or write about another dead young Canadian in Afghanistan.
The words will come together perfectly, or the timing will be ideal for the photo.
It will happen.
Harper can't stop it.
And the public will see it.
They might not want to see it, but they will.
And they too, will react.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
Click to expand...
 
>>"Pentagon rules dating back to 1991 ban the media from covering the return of the remains of soldiers killed abroad."<<

Those who gave their last full measure for their country are honored in secret.
 
Andy K said:
Similar rules have been in place in the US since 1991. I can't be sure but BLiar may have tried the same here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3652171.stm

"Pentagon rules dating back to 1991 ban the media from covering the return of the remains of soldiers killed abroad."
Click to expand...

Yes, I am aware of and very displeased by those rules.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
"at any given time, a photographer in the right place can capture a defining moment. "

I think this is the most important of all. For us, for the governments around the globe, for the peoples that habitates it.

Besides fun, art, bussiness, technique, whatsoever, Photography has played undismissable roles, at certain moments of history, usually to uncover big lyies. The camera is a tremendous powerful instrument.

It is also a powerful instrument for recording what whe love most in our life, being us amateurs, pros, or consumers. It all depends on the awarenes of the one holding the camera, more than technique, aesthetics or the type of camera you hold. It is a very democratic instrument.

Cheers
Ruben
 
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