This is one thing I’ve never been able to figure out – the media, since the Persian Gulf War, has wanted to film coffins containing the remains of our military returning to the US at Dover AFB. The ever-vigilant Washington Post ruminates over the issue today;
President Obama said last week that he is considering lifting the ban on photographs and videos at Dover, in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, raising fundamental questions about the impact of such images on the public morale in wartime.
For Obama, changing the policy would carry some political risk as he ramps up the war effort in Afghanistan with tens of thousands of fresh troops, increasing the likelihood of combat deaths that could produce photographs of numerous coffins arriving at one time at Dover, the sole U.S. port of entry for the remains. At the same time, Obama has advocated transparency in government, and continuing to hide the Dover ritual from public view conflicts with that principle as well as with public opinion on the issue, polls indicate.
Yeah, well, there is no political risk for Obama – as we’ve seen with every other issue Obama faces, he’s quick to blame the previous administration for forcing him to make unpopular choices, depending on the crowd. Whatever he decides, the media will gaily celebrate his wisdom.
It’s the media’s apparent obsession with it that bothers me;
Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent and WTOP radio reporter who teaches journalism and politics at the University of Delaware, has sued the government to obtain the release of some military photographs of honor ceremonies at Dover under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Dover is the only place in the country where the entire nation can observe the return of these casualties,” Begleiter said. “The most important and dramatic . . . cost of war is the casualties, the troops who make the ultimate sacrifice and come back to their country in a casket draped with an American flag, and to leave that image unobserved seems to be disingenuous.”
No, what’s disingenuous here is the false impression that there are scads of people who would care about the war if only the media were allowed to take pictures of coffins on an airstrip in Delaware. Like so much other hyperbole we get from the drama queen press, this is just ignorant rantings of self-important idiots.
There are funerals across the country everyday that we never read about in the media, not because they’re banned from reporting, but because they don’t think it’s news. The only reason the media thinks this particular issue is news is because it’s something they’re not allowed to do.
Much like the gays-in-the-military issue – there are not millions of gays waiting for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be lifted for them to join the military, neither are there millions of news readers waiting for the ban at Dover AFB to be lifted before they pick up a newspaper.
Every year, there’s an hours-long ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day. The media is there for hours through the whole thing, yet the only thing that makes the evening news is 5 seconds of the President placing the wreath at the Tomb. Every Friday night, wounded soldiers roll up to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from the war – no reporters are ever there to record it.
If the ban is eventually lifted, there may be a story about the first time the media is allowed to record the event, they’ll make a big deal out of it and thrust their puny fists in the air in victory, one picture might appear in your newspaper, five seconds of video might make a continuous loop every thirty minutes on CNN for a day – and then it will be over.
In exchange, the solemn event will have lost it’s last shred of dignity so some greasy, vacuous borderline paparazzi photographers can gawk at the flag-draped remains of better people than they’ll ever be.
ADDED: I guess the American Legion agree with me.
