John Weidner of Random Jottings displays this moving image this morning:
A caisson carries the casket of Lance Cpl. Torrey Stoffel-Gray in a procession through Patoka, Ill., on Monday. The 19-year-old Marine was killed April 11 by hostile fire in Iraq's Anbar province. He was stationed at Twentynine Palms, Calif
Weidner asks:
So why don't we see more things like this? And what's the big deal about Dover?He answers:
Dover AFB is where large shipments of coffins with our war dead arrive. They are then forwarded to various localities. The press wants to show coffins en masse because they think it will help their party in the next election by causing Americans to lose heart. (A side-effect like undermining their country in time of war is too trifling to worry about.)This certainly rings true, but I think there's another factor working here that is not quite so political: the lazy/cheap factor.
There might be, if the Pulitizer committee were not itself subject to corruption, a prize for photojournalism to be found in tracking the effects of the war at home, but most of the press would be too lazy and too cheap to try for it.
It would entail a long series of assignments in the small towns and dusty backwaters of America. There would be lots of short hops on small commuter airlines, many nights in Motel 6, many days in cheap rented cars, and a host of meals snatched at Waffle Hut. Not an assignment many would treasure. Not an assignment many editors would give. Most would like to stay home and cover something local like dog fights, small fires, and milking contests.
Dover is close to DC where the media keeps its standing army. Much more efficient to just send a team out there and be back in time for cocktails in Foggy Bottom. Lazy and cheap, the two signature qualities of many of the career officers in the Media army.
Besides, this push to cover large numbers of coffins is only a stalking horse for the real desire of the insatiable media. They live and die by circulation numbers and ratings and what they really want is a piece of the Iraq reality show near home and safe.
Look for some craven employee of the media to start pushing for "Our Iraq War Dead: The Autopsy" as the next step in the downward spiral of 'reality TV.' "After all," the argument will go, "doesn't the public have a right to know the real costs of the war? We need to see the bodies come out of the coffins and how they are examined and prepared."
I'm sure that some of the real bottom feeders of the media will even hunt up a bereft and confused family of a soldier killed in Iraq and get them to sign papers and give interviews demanding that this revolting kind of story be allowed. Will it be allowed? You might think not, but given the almost instant cave-in to a bogus FOIA request earlier this week that's no longer certain. It's clear that to some in the Pentagon you can't do enough or go far enough to satisfy the media's claim that it be allowed to penetrate every facet of our national life. What's privacy and decency when it is standing in the way of reallly big ratings and a large bump in circulation?
Even odds that we'll see something like "Our Fallen Hero:The Autopsy" on HBO within the year.
Posted by Vanderleun at April 24, 2004 9:31 AM | TrackBack