Why does this not surprise me:
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) — 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.
…U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a “zero access” policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director.
In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, “we don’t think that’s proper” to let members of the media view the bodies.
The judge was to consider granting a permanent injunction Saturday when the government announced its decision not to enforce the “zero access” policy.
In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to “prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover” the hurricane victim recovery process.
Quite funny seeing how they would not show the victim’s of 9/11:
“The question is, are we informing or titillating and causing
unnecessary grief?” ABC News chief David Westin told the New York Times just days after the Sept. 11 attack. Explaining why his network decided not to show any pictures of people leaping to their deaths at the World Trade Center, he said, “Our responsibility is to inform the American public of what’s going on, and, in going the next step, is it necessary to show people plunging to their
death?”
So why is it that it is ok now? Could it be because now they WANT the public to be angry and inflamed? No, no bias here…..sigh
Ed Driscoll has a interesting observation:
It’s even more astonishing, coming from a network which for over a decade whitewashed images of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, just to maintain a “LIVE FROM BAGHDAD” line chromakeyed on the screen while their reporter spoke in front of Saddam’s Ministry of Information. Broadcasting the same lies from Saddam Hussein’s propaganda ministers they could have just as easily have picked up on any news wire and reported from CNN’s facilities in Atlanta–along with some thoughts on what the true story might be.
Dr. Sanity has some more thoughts:
Do you know that I have just spent almost 2 hours trying to find photos of any of the bodies from 9/11? There do not appear to be any available to the public.
Do you know that I have tried to find photos of some of the
hostage beheadings in Iraq; some of the mutilated bodies that Islamic terrorists regularly post on their web sites. There are NO pictures of these in any of the news stories. There is no visual documentation of these atrociies.The MSM would not want to imflame public opinion.
Unless they hoped such photos might inflame public opinion in a direction they approved .
And that my friends is exactly what they want to do.
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