LAT: Unseen Pictures, Untold Stories (Few pictures of US Dead MSM)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-iraqphoto21may21,0,5896419,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The young soldier died like so many others, ambushed while on patrol in Baghdad. Medics rushed him to a field hospital, but couldn't get his heart beating again.

What set Army Spc. Travis Babbitt's last moments in Iraq apart was that he confronted them in front of a journalist's camera.

An Associated Press photograph of the mortally wounded Babbitt remains a rarity — one of a handful of pictures of dead or dying American service members to be published in this country since the start of the Iraq war more than two years ago.

A review of six prominent U.S. newspapers and the nation's two most popular newsmagazines during a recent six-month period found almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action. During that time, 559 Americans and Western allies died. The same publications ran 44 photos from Iraq to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during that same time.

<snip>

Journalists attribute the relatively bloodless portrayal of the war to a variety of causes — some in their control, others in the hands of the U.S. military, and the most important related to the far-flung nature of the conflict and the way American news outlets perceive their role.



This soldier was one of the Misfits featured in "A Company of Soldiers" - the PBS Frontline special that aired a couple of months ago.

[Clark2008]

1. I never even saw the picture.

What picture?

(If it's too graphic, just link it).

[daleo]

2. Yes, we have seen more pictures of Saddam in his underwear.

But that's what the war was all about, apparently.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Took awhile but I did find the picture and posted with the article

[Disturbed]

4. Remember the photos of six troops lying dead after..

they were shot in the head. I was tempted to copy it off but thought that would be too macabre. The Press has been ordered not to film or photo this war but some still sneak in to do so.