Don't Censor Bin Laden's Photo
The question of the moment is whether photos of a dead Osama bin Laden should be released to the public?
And the next question is, if they are, should the media play them big on TV and on the front pages of newspapers?
At the moment, U.S. President Obama thinks the photos should not be made public (“as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool”), and many in the media feel running a photo of the man with a bullet hole over his left eye, or worse, is not suitable for family viewing.
CIA Chief Leon Panetta seems to favor releasing the photos.
Debate continues in the corridors of political power and in newsrooms of the world, with valid points raised by both sides.
Mark me down as someone who categorically feels it’s important to run a photo of the dead Osama bin Laden – if only to prove to skeptics that he is dead.
Anything resembling a cover up, or censorship, will be used by paranoids and conspiracy-nuts as evidence that what we’re being told is untrue.
Publicizing photos of the dead Osama are unlikely to spur violence on his behalf around the world. Dead is dead, and those inclined to riot prefer living martyrs (if there is such a thing).
Covering up or holding back is usually counter-productive. The death of Osama bin Laden is newsworthy, and the world is entitled to see him dead as well as hearing that he has been killed.
He is as reviled today, as Hitler once was, and the world is entitled to see him dead. Get it over with, and short-circuit those who would disseminate phony or doctored photos of his corpse.
Newsworthiness trumps concerns about taste or adverse reactions.
In the Biafran war some 40 years ago, a big issue was atrocities and genocide committed by Nigerian soldiers that international observers (from Canada, Britain, Sweden, Poland) couldn’t find.
As a reporter covering the war, I was with Biafrans when they recaptured a village which was strewn with skeletons and desiccated bodies -- hands tied behind backs, legs snapped at the knees, and crawl marks etched in the sandy ground.
My photos were clear evidence of atrocities that the Telegram was reluctant to print. I argued they were proof of atrocities, and appealed to the publisher, John Bassett, who ordered my photo to run front page.
Editors were annoyed at my end-run, and instead of a huge front page photo as I imagined, ran a two-inch photo below the fold. A reporter has no chance against editors. But the world didn’t end, and the photo put to rest the issue of atrocities, if not genocide.
There’ve been so many versions of what went on when the SEALS invaded Osama bin Laden’s compound, that it’s important to settle the matter of his death.
Otherwise circumstances of that raid may become a modern version of the grassy knoll in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Get the photos out there, and end the argument of how he died. Closure, in fact.
The longer there’s delay in releasing photos showing his death, the stronger the myth will grow that Osama wasn’t killed, and is hidden somewhere.
Remember, there are still people out there who think Americans landing on the moon was faked, and that Elvis Presley is alive somewhere.
We don’t want that sort of immortality for Osama bin Laden.
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