cameras aren't around, to be sure, instead they'll simply provide their own cameras, and provide the footage to the American networks for the American networks, because in the end, from their perspective, there is no difference whatsoever. Indeed, if anything, they end up better off, since the footage being aired has been shot (and edited) to reflect their point of view. It is better for their cause if the networks depend upon and use the footage provided than using footage shot by (and edited by) professional photojournalists. Cooper's statement is, in the end, a nonsensical one, at least for a war being fought against enemies using the methodologies of terrorism.
The footage being integrated into news pieces more typically has also been footage of American soldiers and marines being killed and maimed. The only reason this is found acceptable with less controversy than met the CNN piece, or perhaps is simply not noticed in the same way, is because it is generally presented as footage of a convoy being attacked, or a truck or "humvee" or armored personnel carrier being destroyed—the language reporters use almost always camouflages what is being shown, as if somehow these pieces of machinery shown being blown up were moving down the road under their own control. The use of this footage has become so normalized at this point that the audience does not have to think about what they are seeing, whereas when a network airs footage of the death of an American soldier out in the open and visible, there is no avoiding what is being shown, and the response is therefore enormously negative.[1] But the networks are attempting to make a distinction in the use of this footage between what is being watched and what is being seen that cannot be sustained.[2]
The fact that American television coverage is "sanitized" in this fashion, that bodies (at least
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- ↑ Those outlets that did less cropping of the photograph of the mutilated bodies of the contractors in Fallujah received a very strong negative reaction from their audiences, for example. See the oddly mistitled Paul Nussbaum, "Reaction to Graphic Images Somewhat Subdued," Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 2004, p. A-6, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, www.lexisnexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5437716499&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5437717602&cisb=22_T5437717601&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=144577&docNo=1. This may be in part a function of the shock value of seeing bodies of American soldiers, when the press so rarely makes those images available. The Los Angeles Times surveyed 6 months of coverage, running from September 1, 2004, through February 28, 2005, a period that included the marine assault on Fallujah. During that period, "readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Washington Post did not see a single picture of a dead serviceman. The Seattle Times ran a photo 3 days before Christmas of the covered body of a soldier killed in [a] mess hall bombing. Neither Time nor Newsweek … showed any U.S. battlefield dead during that time." American publications were more willing (and this is not unusual) to show non-American dead, the New York Times, for example, printing 55 photos of dead or wounded Iraqis over the same time period. That said, the LA Times also provided polling data indicating the public as a whole is supportive of such photos being published (which will continue to be irrelevant, since outlets respond to the number of complaints they receive, not the number of readers or audience members who do not respond directly). The article includes a breakout of the number of images of dead, wounded, and grieving by outlet for the period, which is quite interesting. See James Rainey, "Unseen Pictures, Untold Stories," Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2005, available from latimes.com, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-nairaqphoto21may21,1,5119073.story.
- ↑ One would have thought that after ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman were hurt in an IED explosion, the networks—at least ABC—would have had to confront the fact that whatever these images may look like, they are, in fact, pictures of someone's loved one being killed or hurt. Not only did this practice not change, but all three networks used such footage in their coverage of Woodruff's being injured—and ABC's piece on the nature of the roadside bomb as a weapon, which ran as part of their coverage that night, may have been the one that used the most individual segments of this type that night, I counted six as it aired: 5 explosions, and one of a bomb being assembled. See David Wright, "Roadside Bombs, Greatest Cause of Injury, Death," ABC World News Tonight, January 29, 2006, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/universe/document?_m=43a1e91c51ce240f0f40e3967fd8d51b&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzz-zSkVA&_md5=6b0b937dbe48b1ab144991efbce0a289. (This story aired several months before the Tyndall Report began cataloguing reports.)
