Media coverage of events in Fallujah: How much is too much??

In other parts of the world, coverage is much more graphic. I'm told that in Spain they showed the train explosion victims--or what was left of them--on live television. I'm not saying either approach is right. However, here we tend toward NOT showing that stuff, and since that's the community expectation, I wouldn't think the NYT would do such a thing. I watched the News Hour last night and they showed edited footage, but you could still see a bloody trail on the ground as the men dragged the bodies around. Not something I really wanted to see.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

I was commenting to my husband last night how I was SO glad we don't have TV so I didn't have to see the coverage and then I did a dumb thing and ended up looking at pictures online.I fell apart

I think this is putting a human face to the war,so to speak, for many Americans. For that reason,I think it may be good that some Americans have seen some of this coverage. I think it drills the reality of this war home a bit.Perhaps the coverage should be less "open", like so children aren't exposed to it as much. Self editing is always a good idea with the news,anyway.

I think when we (collective) as a country choose to support a war, that we also bear the responsibility of seeing and hearing about things that make us uncomfortable...particularly if it's happening so far away as to be "unrealistic" for the vast majority of us.

I don't think that it will change anyone's minds about it (will probably strengthen whatever conviction one has, actually). But I would actually like to see people understand on a visceral level what is going on.

If my dad had been killed in that manner in one of the many "conflicts" that he was involved in as a military person, I actually would WANT his picture to be shown and remembered, instead of being one of the faceless "X more Americans were killed today" that nobody even recalls. Of course, I would also wish them to show his service photo as well, as the main news program on PBS does each night with soldiers that are killed that day in Iraq.

Seeing the real human cost of the conflict, however one chooses to take it, is *essential* to understanding and caring about the issues behind it. Different media has different impacts on folks. I am immune to visual violence, for the most part, in a still photo. But recordings and voices impact me greatly. So for me, hearing the screaming and fear in people's voices on an NPR news program is far more traumatic and gripping than seeing a photo of a dead body. But I would never think of censoring NPR's coverage for my own personal comfort.

It's not wrong to decide to avoid photos. I can totally empathize with the reasons for that. But I don't think such things should be censored.

-Kitty, mama to Fiona, Thomas, and Dylan.

These well-articulated points give me more to think about and ponder. Thank you Lynn, Rebecca, and Kitty.

My only complaint is that these images only show the dead on our side. They did not, for example, show the remains of a bomb shelter that was destroyed by our side in the first Gulf War (Which I supported, don't get me wrong) in which many, many women and children were killed - there were two survivors out of a few hundred, who had gone out for food and water. NOT to prove that we're in the wrong, or to be sensationalistic - but just as Kitty said, there need to be *faces* attached to the news stories. We need to remember that the chaos we're inflicting, right or wrong, is killing, maiming, and destroying the homes of thousands of people, just as thousands of our own will be killed, maimed, or scarred. It's not about which side is *right* - it's about truly understanding what an effort we're undertaking and its consequences before we decide to bomb anyone back to the stone age.