Flag-draped coffin story advances
Flag-draped coffin story advances.
The Pentagon is quite upset about all the interest in pictures of flag-draped coffins of dead U.S. Servicemen. As I told you yesterday, a woman and her husband lost their cargo jobs in Kuwait, because a photo she took showed up in the Seattle Times. Then (ironically) the Pentagon released 350 similar photos to Russ Kick, the operator of The Memory Hole Website under a Freedom Of Information Act request. Since 1991, the Pentagon has banned the taking of such photos while apparently taking plenty themselves.
Most of the commentary about this so far has centered on politics. The Bush administration is being accused of trying to hide the fact that U.S. Servicemen are dying in Iraq. That’s a debatable point, and I see the real story as this: A citizen journalist took a photo that cost her a job while shining a light on the issue of the Pentagon’s rule, etc. Another citizen journalist obtained 350 Pentagon photos that further informed the American people.
It’s entertaining, albeit sad, to watch the traditional media fall all over each other to advance a story that they had little, if anything, to do with generating.
(NOTE: The Memory Hole Website’s pipe is clogged with traffic.)
