April 22, 2004

A Picture is Worth a Pink Slip

Tami Silicio, a Seattle-area woman who works for a defense contractor, paid the utlimate price for snapping a photo: She lost her job. It turns out she supposedly was breaking a 1991 Pentagon ruling barring pictures of coffins in transport to the United States. The photo of flag-draped coffins was show in the Seattle Times.

I'm curious to know what others think about this. I think the photo is respectful and it just shows the result of war: death. If it was a photo of managled bodies, then there might be a case for firing her, but that wasn't the case here.

Posted by Dennis at April 22, 2004 01:35 PM
Comments

I graduated with a Journalism degree in '92. I've studied journalism ethics (yes, there *was* such a thing once...). The photo taken was of coffins, not bodies, so there was nothing graphic. But there was something symbolic, which horrifies the Powers That Be, which was why they banned such photos in the first place.
It's still censorship. It's still wrong to deny Americans images of what really happens in war. It's still criminal that Tami Silicio lost her job for trying to show Americans something she had seen and thought everyone else should see.
Let's vote her into the White House and have Bush work the coffin shifts at the airport.

Posted by: Paul Wartenberg at April 23, 2004 08:53 AM
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