Randall Chase, an Associated Press correspondent based in Delaware, has an interesting update on the Pentagon’s just three-week-old policy allowing media access to the ceremony that marks the return to American soil of the bodies of soldiers killed in action, provided their families consent to the coverage.
Chase, who I quoted in a write-up of the policy the day after the first open ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, reports that 14 of the 19 families affected by the shift have welcomed coverage. Some supporters of the old policy, which had essentially quashed access to the events for 18 years, had said it was designed to protect unwanted intrusion to a solemn ceremony.
There was a different point of view, one ably expressed to Chase by a soldier’s relative:
“I think it was to protect the government’s butt,” said David Pautsch, who allowed the media to witness the return of his son Jason, an Army corporal from Davenport, Iowa, who was killed with four other soldiers in a bombing in Iraq.
He said the ban was more about minimizing the political impact of Americans dying overseas.“I think it was a reaction against the second-guessing of our country’s mission,” he said.
As I noted in my piece earlier this month on the lifting of the ban, there was concern that after an initial burst of attention, media interest would fade.
“Now that the families are giving their consent, will the media care?” asks Melnyk, who worries that families who consent to coverage, but see no journalists at their loved one’s arrival, may get the impression that the nation does not appreciate their loss. “It ain’t going to be news in a month.”
And so, three weeks out, Chase reports that a recent ceremony was witnessed by only one journalist: an AP photographer.
(h/t Greg Mitchell)
Four thousands, two hundred and seventy-seven combat fatalities into the war in Iraq, and the deaths represented by the photos of pine boxes coming into Dover are many things--certainly tragic, possibly senseless--but they aren't newsworthy. A single AP photographer sounds about right.
That there were so many journalists at the first open ceremony says more about the media’s self-absorption—the story was that the media now had access to a story—than it does about anything else. And that the attention paid to the dead by the media could be subject to such caprice is perhaps the best argument there is for the old policy.
#1 Posted by D.R. Foster, CJR on Mon 27 Apr 2009 at 07:02 PM
I would not say there is a drop in interest, but more a matter of logistics.
The DoD gives only about eight hours notice, primarily due to the flight time from Germany to the US. They do not want to have the press gathered until they know when the aircraft will arrive.
Obviously very few people will be able to make it to Dover Air Force Base within that very short time frame. If a deceased serviceman is from anywhere more than a few hours drive away, journalists simply won't be able to make it.
#2 Posted by J Alan Brown, CJR on Tue 28 Apr 2009 at 03:08 PM