channonyarrow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
channonyarrow) wrote2005-09-07 06:25 pm
channonyarrow) wrote2005-09-07 06:25 pm
The insanity, it continues.
Go. Read.
In sum - and this should be enough to turn your hair white - the press are being thrown out of New Orleans - they are being banned because the government doesn't want people to know how many bodies are found.
Whether or not you believe that these photos should be seen (personally, I'm not in favour of gore on the cover of Newsweek) this is the sinking of the First Amendment. This is the end of freedom of the press.
Unless we do something.
Call the White House, 202-456-1111, and let them know that there is still freedom of the press - there is no national security issue in this disaster -- there should be nothing to hide when the goal is to seek the truth about what happened.
Whether or not this is an issue of "common decency" as FEMA is trying to play it is irrelevant. Common decency comes into play at the newspaper, magazine, media outlet level - not the government's. The government doesn't get to hide the number of people killed in this hurricane to sanitise its own image.
The numbers of dead will not be less if we don't know about them. But we as a people will be diminished if we let the government cover their own asses in this matter. This isn't about decency. This is about looking better at a time that the government looks awful. Don't let them clean themselves this way.
In sum - and this should be enough to turn your hair white - the press are being thrown out of New Orleans - they are being banned because the government doesn't want people to know how many bodies are found.
Whether or not you believe that these photos should be seen (personally, I'm not in favour of gore on the cover of Newsweek) this is the sinking of the First Amendment. This is the end of freedom of the press.
Unless we do something.
Call the White House, 202-456-1111, and let them know that there is still freedom of the press - there is no national security issue in this disaster -- there should be nothing to hide when the goal is to seek the truth about what happened.
Whether or not this is an issue of "common decency" as FEMA is trying to play it is irrelevant. Common decency comes into play at the newspaper, magazine, media outlet level - not the government's. The government doesn't get to hide the number of people killed in this hurricane to sanitise its own image.
The numbers of dead will not be less if we don't know about them. But we as a people will be diminished if we let the government cover their own asses in this matter. This isn't about decency. This is about looking better at a time that the government looks awful. Don't let them clean themselves this way.