After Further Review: The AP Photo Controversy

While I was weighing the implications of the decision by the Associated Press to distribute a photograph of a mortally wounded Marine, my colleague Tim Ricks, over on his blog, was rendering a quick and unequivocal verdict. He ruled the AP’s action “wrong” and “morally indefensible.”

The dying marine: What the hell was the AP thinking? – The Best Defense, Sept. 5

Now I don’t take lightly the prospect of disagreeing with a respected military reporter like Tom Ricks. In fact I don’t disagree with Ricks at all when it comes to the final call. I am of the same opinion that the AP should have withheld the picture, as least for a time. As Ricks says, “What was so urgent that it couldn’t wait a few weeks or months, until the family had had a chance to mourn?”

But I do part company with the esteemed Pulitzer prize-winner and self-described “1st Amendment fundamentalist” on his harsh judgment that the AP’s decision, was in his words “morally indefensible.”

I think the issue of to what degree news coverage reflects the “reality of war” is a legitimate, and healthy debate to have. And I think that the argument the AP advanced (after what was obviously a lot of soul searching) is valid. The AP is absolutely right when it asserts journalists have a duty to report on war’s gritty reality, no matter how brutal and unpleasant that can be.

Ricks says he didn’t see the picture, and doesn’t want to. I have, and I agree with the AP when it says the overall series of photographs, and the story that went with them are “in themselves a respectful treatment and recognition of sacrifice.”

In short, the decision is morally and journalistically defensible, and the AP has mounted its best argument, although to my mind, it falls short of being a “slam dunk.” It should again be noted that the AP did not violate the letter of any of the rules imposed by the Pentagon for reporters embedding with U.S. troops.

So, in the end this is a judgment call. It’s about weighing the newsworthiness of the photograph against respect for the wishes of the family. And that can be a close call. Journalists don’t want to give any outside party a veto over what they report; not the Pentagon, not families, not anyone whose desire is to keep the most accurate account away from the public.

Therefore the AP was right to make its own determination, and not automatically bow to the family’s request to withhold distribution. But after careful consideration, I have to say I come down on the side of honoring the wishes of the Marine’s father, who did not want the picture of his son writhing in agony on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Any father understands that.

I think Bob Gates got it right when he said, “The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.” It’s just the decent thing to do.

But the AP is also right to recoil against any effort to sanitize war, or minimize its sacrifice or cruelty. And the picture is part of the history of that war. I’m sure the debate is still raging inside the AP.

Tags: Censorship, Marine, War