AP Wire insults heroic Marine
Published by Avi Green on Saturday, September 05, 2009 at 9:30 PM.
The Associated with terrorists Press has committed a serious foul in their handling of the case of a dying Marine by publishing a photo without permission (Hat tip: Blackfive and Michelle Malkin):
The Huffington Post has also exploited the photo. I'd say a lawsuit should be filed against them as well.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency.”Here's the AP's contact page. The family of the dying Marine should sue them. And in all due honesty, their staffers should be ostracized by everyone with common sense. They shouldn't be welcomed at an amusement park or a carnival, nor at a resturant or a movie house.
The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.
The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”
The photo shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, according to The AP.
Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. I do not make this request lightly. In one of my first public statements as Secretary of Defense, I stated that the media should not be treated as the enemy, and made it a point to thank journalists for revealing problems that need to be fixed – as was the case with Walter Reed.”
“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”
The Huffington Post has also exploited the photo. I'd say a lawsuit should be filed against them as well.
Labels: msm foulness, United States, war on terror
