Pictures of body bags and groups of US soldiers praying around dead comrades are creeping into American media coverage of Iraq, highlighting the growing unease at events.
The mounting death toll and particularly events such as the brutal mutilation of four private security contractors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah have broken the taboo on showing the US victims, according to media experts.
Many US dailies on Friday showed a picture of US marines praying over the body of a member of their unit after he died from his wounds at a first aid point in Fallujah.
The USA Today daily splashed a picture of a wounded marine gripping the hands of comrades as he awaited treatment.
US authorities have sought since the 1961-75 Vietnam war to control the media use of conflict images. Since the 1991 Gulf War they have banned photographers from covering the return of military coffins to the United States.
"It's really moving towards a more normal situation, to publish pictures of the dead, because after all a war is about killing," said Jim Naurekas of the media analysis organisation Fair and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). But editorial judgements have made a sudden change.
"Throughout the war the media were extremely reluctant to publish any images of wounded or dead American soldiers, that's been one of the major taboos of the conflict," added Naurekas.
"There is the idea that to publish pictures of wounded soldiers would diminish support for the war, particularly at the height of the fighting last year, there was a sense that doing anything that might erode the public backing for the war was unpatriotic."
Naurekas added that "there's a great deal of self-censorship."
Robert Thompson, director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in New York, said events on the ground in Iraq and political changes in Washington had altered media coverage.
"American journalists and TV channels are probably a little less reluctant now to report some of the stuff in more detail and showing more pictures than they were before when there was all this national unity," said Thompson.
The killing of the contractors in Fallujah "sort of eroded the taboo," said Thompson. The charred bodies of two of the Americans were mutilated and strung from a bridge. Gruesome pictures were widely shown in the United States.
"The mistreatment of the bodies in Fallujah was so much a part of the story, that it was hard to tell the story without the pictures," said Naurekas.
CNN repeatedly showed Thursday pictures of a soldier, with the lower part of his body covered in blood, being evacuated on a truck and of wounded marines escaping from their tank.
Several major newspapers have this week also showed the picture of a marine in the town of Ramadi, carrying over his shoulder the body of a dead comrade in a black plastic body bag.
Pictures of troops in tears as they learn of the deaths of fellow soldiers and a female medic holding the hand of a wounded marine in a Humvee vehicle after an ambush have also been given prominent exposure.
"It could affect people and their perception of the war to see the reality of it," said Naurekas. "It's pretty well understood that images have a much more emotional impact than words do." Thompson believes the impact will only be serious if the flow of conflict pictures from Iraq is prolonged.
"Any one set of images is not really going to change public opinion significantly," said the Syracuse expert. But "a few more weeks like the one we just had where all these images begin to come together, and that's where the change really occurs."
Thompson highlighted how there were a lot of "pretty scary images" in the Vietnam war. "But it wasn't until we'd been there for a while and the images just wouldn't stop that public opinion began to change significantly."
Comments
Comments are closed.