Missing the mark: Spin control and political correctness don't help --The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA
The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA: "Two Hurricane Katrina-related items from the What Were They Thinking Dept.:
Item One is the mind-boggling request by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the news media not take photographs of people killed by Katrina. The spin from the embattled federal disaster response agency is that documenting deaths caused by the storm would undermine FEMA's efforts to recover victims' bodies with 'dignity and respect.'
Hello? More than 25,000 body bags have been sent to New Orleans in what everyone hopes is a huge overestimation of potential fatalities. Still, it underscores how significant a part of the story the death toll will become.
Whatever the ultimate count, censoring the recovery of bodies - most of which will belong to the same poor, black population that was left behind in the evacuation - won't do anything to restore dignity and respect to people who were forgotten because they were invisible to many officials. It's also disturbingly consistent with the Bush ad- ministration's 'out of sight, out of mind' policy banning photos of caskets carrying the remains of soldiers killed in action in Iraq as they arrive at Dover Air Force Base."
Item One is the mind-boggling request by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the news media not take photographs of people killed by Katrina. The spin from the embattled federal disaster response agency is that documenting deaths caused by the storm would undermine FEMA's efforts to recover victims' bodies with 'dignity and respect.'
Hello? More than 25,000 body bags have been sent to New Orleans in what everyone hopes is a huge overestimation of potential fatalities. Still, it underscores how significant a part of the story the death toll will become.
Whatever the ultimate count, censoring the recovery of bodies - most of which will belong to the same poor, black population that was left behind in the evacuation - won't do anything to restore dignity and respect to people who were forgotten because they were invisible to many officials. It's also disturbingly consistent with the Bush ad- ministration's 'out of sight, out of mind' policy banning photos of caskets carrying the remains of soldiers killed in action in Iraq as they arrive at Dover Air Force Base."
posted by Blackgold at 9:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home