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London, Monday, April 26, 2004

Diana crash photo has half the shock value of Iraq coffins

Nicholas Wapshott on America

TWO images of death caused embarrassment and grief last week. A photograph of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the floor of the Mercedes-Benz in which she died, broadcast by CBS News as part of an investigation into her death, caused barely a flicker of concern in a country that has always claimed to have taken the Princess to its heart.

coming home, feet firstThe pictures that caused real shock and anguish in America were the first published photographs of coffins carrying home US military personnel killed in Iraq.

Two grisly images of death. Two quite different reactions. Both presented as noble exercises in serving the public interest. The picture of the Princess, showing little more than her blonde hair, was taken by papparazzi moments after the fatal crash and was culled by CBS from the French inquiry into her death.

The decision to show the Princess in her final moments was presented as a journalistic coup, yet it was little more than a ghoulish spectacle to draw viewers to the retelling of a familiar story.

In the wake of British alarm, CBS's Sandra M. Genelius declared disingenuously that the picture was "in no way graphic or exploitative". It was both. CBS attracted 9.4 million viewers to its Diana ghoul-fest, an increase of 800,000 on the previous week's offering. By contrast, the pictures of coffins of Americans killed in Iraq failed to make the front page of the New York Post on Friday, although the Daily News splashed one on its cover. Editors at The New York Times shillyshallied, demoting the most eloquent image of the Iraq war this year to the bottom of the front page in favour of a plug for Cunard's QM2 arriving in New York harbour. The difference in approach between the papers is explained by politics.

Although the Pentagon welcomed the press along when the 1st Cavalry attacked Baghdad, pictures of wounded, dying or dead soldiers have rarely been published in America. Until the siege of Fallujah began two weeks ago, when photographs of US soldiers wiping blood from their faces appeared, unfavourable images of the war have been largely absent. The lack of pictures of military coffins or funerals, however, is the result of Pentagon censorship.

During the 1991 Gulf War, President Bush Sr prohibited such images, fearful of repeating the caustic effect that pictures of the 55,000 body-bags returning from Vietnam had on the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Before the Iraq war, George W. Bush reimposed his father's ban for the same reasons, citing "concern for the families of the dead".

The censorship held for more than a year with not a single American editor thinking the ban worth commenting on or contesting. Then came Russ Kick, a freedom-of-speech campaigner, who, under the First Amendment, demanded the release of the hundreds of photographs of coffins taken by the US Air Force "for historical purposes, for documentation and for training". After consulting constitutional lawyers, the USAF released 361 images of lines of coffins in warehouses at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. Soon afterwards, the first photograph of flag-draped caskets appeared in The Seattle Times. Other papers published similar pictures five days later. The Pentagon quickly countermanded the air force decision. The American press, subservient to the Defence Department's wishes for so long, must now decide whether to mount a legal challenge. If it succeeds - and the First Amendment is unequivocal on the right of access to information unless it threatens national security - pictures of coffins will become part of America's daily diet.

The coffin issue has caused an ugly skirmish in an already brutal and graceless general election. Those who doubt the President's motives for waging war favour publication; those who favour his re-election are against. The relatives of the dead find themselves recruited by both sides. Donald Rumsfeld will be directing his Defence Department lawyers this morning to use every ruse to halt the flow of images that show voters the unpalatable price of the war.

 

David Irving: A Radical's Diary: "President Bush believes in bringing back the coffins of the soldiers who have died for him, secretly and in the airborne equivalent of a Waste Management truck"

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