'Zero access' for media during corpse recovery

[WindyInPA]

Article published Sept. 10, 2005
By Greg Livadas
Gannett News Services


Services BATON ROUGE Body recovery teams are finding new corpses every day in the slowly receding floodwaters in New Orleans, but don't expect to see photos or videotapes of those discoveries in your newspaper or on television.
National Guard Lt. Gen. Russel Honore told reporters at a news conference Friday that there would be "zero access" for media during body recovery operations out of respect for those who have died and their families.

Honore said the media, up to this point, has had "total access to everything we've done: the good, the bad and the ugly." He said procedures would be in place to sweep neighborhoods, notify next-of-kin and transfer the remains back to family members.



http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/NEWS05/509100329&template=printart



The media needs to continue documenting the events and recovery. With all things considered, who else are we to believe?

[chalky]

1. U.S. drops banning media from body hunt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1769520&mesg_id=1769520

[Tace]

2. How Does That Square With This?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1769520

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sydnie]

3. Someone should tell the good General that the court said they couldn't do

that. They have a restraining order that allows them access. The government has backed down from this stance. "Let Freedom Reign".

Now, if they would just challenge the "no casket pictures from Iraq" we might be on our way to a free press again.

[Tace]

5. He'll Hear About It In A Week

[rodeodance]

12. the Gen. is up on things.

[Webster Green]

4. That article looks to be written before the injunction...

Before the CNN lawsuit.

Media WILL be allowed in.


Demand resignations! Now!

[Cobalt Violet]

6. How else will they downplay the body count?

We wouldn't want murikans to know how many people Bush and the Republicans really killed?

[Child_Of_Isis]

8. "How else will they downplay the body count?"

My understanding is that FEMA gets the bodies. So the tele said.

[madrchsod]

7. i agree with him

if it were my loved one or someone i knew, i really don`t want their picture shown for the world to see. as long as there is a full accounting of the dead which i am sure their will be,i`ll go along with the ban..i`ve seen enough to know there has been a crime

[annabanana]

9. how can you be sure there will be a "full accounting"

If they're not letting the media in to corraborate the official statements about the number of fatalitites?

to quote another poster:
"Any journalism that doesn't include complete depictions of the disaster is not journalism.

We're not interested in gruesome details - this is not about disrespect or morbidness. We're not interested in seeing blackened rotting flesh or faces swollen with insects crawling out of the eye sockets after days of submersion. I know what a corpse looks like up close, and I also know that every one of those corpses used to be a person, and many with families who don't WANT to see Poor Aunt Vera rotting photogenically for the camera.

I want to see long shots that tell the larger tale, and I want to see reality, and I want to see the truth. I don't want this mal-administration revising history as it happens. They don't get to, don't let them.

They "asked". Why should you do anything this adminstration "asks". The only thing they've ever done for you is diminish the profession of journalism."

[cap]

10. I dont think there should be individual photos of the dead

but I do think that panoramic pictures showing from a respectable distance what the extent of the tragedy are well in order.

[Merlot]

14. That's what body bags are for

The argument that we would be invading someones privacy is just another smoke screen issue to get people all lathered up. The media will not be showing grusome pictures because they know the vast majority of viewers don't want to see it. But the morgues, the tents, the body bags, yes, those things need to be seen to show the scope of this disaster.

Last night a taking head on the new said "the water is lowering, and not as many bodies as expected are being found." You know what that means. Without seeing the body bags, there is no way we can get an estimate of the magnatitude of this. Of course I'd love to hear that not as many bodies as expected are being found, but I doubt that is the truth.

[rodeodance]

11. faces have not been shown on the tube as far as I know--that is why

the judge agreed to allow photos--the media has shown respect.

[nookiemonster]

17. Full accounting? From this administration???????

:banghead:

eom

[NNN0LHI]

18. Mind boggling n/t

[sallyseven]

21. If they can hide the bodies

we will never know the toll. No one wants to look at the bodies for the heck of it. The Photographers will use discretion./ Lets all see what bush allowed to happen.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. well of course some people will want to look at the bodies

for the heck of it. We all rubber neck accidents. It is unavoidably fascinating.

However that is beside the point. A primary function of the press (and I am trying hard to write this without cracking up) is to provide independent oversight of the actions of the state. The Atrocity in New Orleans has become, for good reason, a political disaster for the Bush administration. Without independent oversight, without a free press able to observe their activities, the political agents of this administration would simply succumb to the temptation to hide the evidence of their criminal negligence.

[NNN0LHI]

27. You just said a mouthful n/t

[still_one]

25. what makes you think there will be a full accounting?

9/11 they had NO PROBLEM SHOWING THE BODIES, same as Viet Nam. Perhaps the agenda is more insidious. IT IS THE DUTY of a free press to keep them accountable, and if showing what negligence does means showing pictures, then so be it

what is a free press about?

[robbedvoter]

13. Silver Douchebag's beautiful mind needs to be protected

[NNN0LHI]

15. Why did we see every body removed from the WTC after 9/11?

It is because:

Bodies shown on TV killed by terra-ists = Good for Bush and Republicans

Bodies shown on TV killed by Bush's incompetence = Bad for Bush and Republicans

Bush and the Republicans were even using images of the WTC victims bodies in their campaign ads!

And anyone who tries to convince me differently is full of shit.

Don

[KyndCulture]

16. Well don't forget Michael Moore is down there now.

He's got a way with getting things nobody wants him to have.

[WindyInPA]

20. How will we know....

without extensive media coverage that some of these bodies won't end up in a mass grave, dumped in the lake or scooped up with the debris? It's so easy to say the bodies couldn't be accounted for leaving the survivers never knowing what really happen to their loved ones. This troubles me.... I agree on the fact that faces should never be shown as a token of respect for the families.

Those doing the recovery should be accountable for the way the recovery is done. This needs to be documented by all media available not just CNN.

[scarletwoman]

23. This news is outdated, CCN sued, got an injunction, Feds declined to fight

The first two posts in this thread have links to the latest news regarding media access:

Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

Joint Task Force Katrina "has no plans to bar, impede or prevent news media from their news gathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts," said Col. Christian E. deGraff, representing the task force.

sw

[tabasco]

24. Rename the country the USSA.

We are now like the old Soviet Union.

Nothing bad can happen under the great and glorious leadership of the corporate CEOs! If anything bad does happen, we won't let you see it !

[Cookie wookie]

26. Now we just have to keep the media from going

back to their pre-Katrina undying devotion to the mal-administration. We have to have them in there as watchdogs. I heard that FEMA outsourced the body removal, then we hear that the press won't be allowed access, then we hear there are fewer dead than projected. Great news if true, but we have no reason to trust the bush administration on this and every reason not to.

I could easily believe that FEMA's little outsourced corporation would be instructed to hide and destroy bodies to keep the numbers down, which I have no doubt they would do, given this adminstration's past conduct. Think about the poor relatives who would never know what happened to their mother or grandmother. They would just disappear down history's memory hole.

I pray that those in the media who have shown that they have regained some resemblance to souls, like Anderson Cooper, will not back down or let the admin get away with hiding bodies or doing their special kind of accounting when reporting the body count.

[Massachusetts]

28. "'Zero access' for media during corpse recovery"

THEN WHO IS WATCHING THE HEN HOUSE?

[NNN0LHI]

31. "THEN WHO IS WATCHING THE HEN HOUSE?"

General Honore. Ain't he dreamy?

Don

[riverwalker]

29. Now, IF I were a journalist

I would find one of the volunteers on the DMORT teams, (who are not all hard core FEMA or DHS, they use hundreds of volunteers from all over) who is a blabber mouth and likes to talk. I'd ask about the real numbers of dead.
Knowing how FUBAR the DHS is under Chertoff, I am sure we will know, there will be leaks.

[Podface]

30. Ready, Aim, hide

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4728071

[tom_paine]

32. All the better to suppress the Body Count

N/A

Could the Busheviks be so unafraid of lying that they will turn 10,000 into LESS than 1,000?

Possible. Hell, maybe even probable. They lie like Soviets.

[PATRICK]

33. Evidence it IS being suppressed

Why do we here from ground witnesses(a fireman volunteer) that 1200 corpses are stored at ONE area high school in St. Bernard's Parish? Is this something worth confirming or debunking? Considering the jarring discrepancy with the "official" body count I would guess so, wouldn't anyone?