Staring Death in the Face during Times of War: When Ethics, Law, and Self-Censorship in the News Media Hide the Morbidity of Authenticity
![handle is hein.journals/ndlep25 and id is 89 raw text is: STARING DEATH IN THE FACE DURING TIMES
OF WAR: WHEN ETHICS, LAW, AND SELF-
CENSORSHIP IN THE NEWS MEDIA HIDE
THE MORBIDITY OF AUTHENTICITY
CLAY CALVERT* & MIRELIs TORRESt
INTRODUCTION
Photos are trickier than words, because their content is in large
measure emotional, visceral, and because you can't edit their
content.
That's how Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York
Times, succinctly describes the difficulty and dilemma posed in
deciding which wartime images newspapers should publish.' A
recent, real-life scenario illustrates the problem: during a Taliban
ambush in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, a
U.S. Marine is fatally wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade.3
As fellow soldiers pull Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard from the
battlefield, an Associated Press (AP) photographer named Julie
Jacobson, who is embedded' with American forces, uses a long-
range lens to snap a picture of him.' Ten days later, after Ber-
* Professor & Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication and
director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University
of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. B.A., 1987, Communication, Stanford University;
J.D. (Order of the Coif), 1991, McGeorge School of Law, University of the
Pacific; Ph.D., 1996, Communication, Stanford University. Member, State Bar
of California. The author thanks Kara Carnley Murrhee, Courtney Stokes and
Rachel Walker of the University of Florida for reviewing early drafts of this
article.
t Bachelor of Arts, English, 2007, University of Florida; J.D./M.A. candi-
date, Levin College of Law and the College of Journalism and Communica-
tions, Expected 2012, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
1. Lorne Manly, In Wars, Quest for Media Balance is Also a Battlefield, N.Y.
TIMES, Aug. 14, 2006, at Cl (quoting Bill Keller, executive editor of The New
York Times).
2. Id.
3. Press Release, Associated Press, AP and the Death of a Marine (Sept. 3,
2009), available at http://www.ap.org/fallen%5Fmarine [hereinafter Death of a
Marine].
4. See generally Cynthia King & Paul Martin Lester, Photographic Coverage
During the Persian Gulf and Iraqi Wars in Three U.S. Newspapers, 82 JOURNALISM &
MASS COMM. Q. 623, 624-26 (2005) (describing the practice of embedding jour-
nalists with U.S. troops).
5. Death of a Marine, supra note 3.
87](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ndlep25&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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