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[videogamer]

In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the networks were remarkably correct. ‘‘Sensitive coverage’’, ‘‘respectful of victims’’, ‘‘no violation of privacy’’: the buzzphrases flew thick and fast.

Until last week, they even seemed believable. Unlike the aftermath of 9/11 — when not one dead body was shown on screen, not one ghastly image recorded for posterity, and about the only objectionable visual was of a man jumping to his death — Asia’s tsunami is open season.

Take the shots from CNN’s 10.00 pm bulletin last night. From Tamil Nadu, we see rows of dead bodies, a man carrying his dead child and, perhaps as primetime stomach churner, people reaching out to hold a child’s corpse.

From Banda Aceh, Indonesia, come pictures of rescue workers carrying victims, all arms and legs really, not quite the composure and dignity they may have wanted to put on for a TV shoot. The rows and rows of bodies continue — southern Sri Lanka one second, Thailand the next.

BBC, the other international bigwig seen in India, was a little better, but only a little.

Here’s a short guide to the Beeb’s 10.30 pm bulletin: in Indonesia, a broken couple carrying their dead children — none of that nonsense about allowing relatives to ‘‘grieve in privacy’’; an aerial view of devastation; a body randomly lying around in a hospital; a quick visit to a makeshift mortuary in Thailand. Oops, don’t miss the corpses.

So what happened to those solemn platitudes of three years ago? How come no channel-surfer got to see Diana and Dodi up close and dead in September 1997? Why has southeast Asia’s biggest tragedy become every American network’s ghoulish Disneyland party? Has disaster finally found its paparazzi?

When contacted, Chris Cramer, managing director, CNN International, said: ‘‘What is happening in your part of the world is quite awful, the final numbers may be close to 1,00,000. It is a natural disaster of great enormity and we will be remiss as a news organisation if we don’t report it comprehensively.’’

When asked about its display of bodies now, in sharp contrast with 9/11, Cramer said: ‘‘On 9/11, if we showed no images of bodies, it was because they were no images to show. The bodies had been incinerated.’’

When told that after 9/11, CNN respected the privacy of grieving families, something it is not doing now, he said: ‘‘We’re not perfect, but we always seek to be respectful of privacy and of the dignity of death—it’s a tightrope walk between gratuitous pictures and, if you may, obscuring pictures.’’

BBC has its point of view. Says Paul Danahar, BBC’s south Asia bureau head, ‘‘We don’t show bodies to sensationalise stories. In this case, some bodies have to be shown to convey the scale of disaster.’’

Danahar insists BBC has a ‘‘strict editorial policy’’ when it comes to showing bodies, ‘‘whether in Britain or Ireland or India or anywhere’’. Alluding to clips of a man jumping off one of the Twin Towers on 9/11, he says, ‘‘We show bodies when it’s part of the news. We don’t use them as library shots or repeat them, say, a month later. In a car accident, we don’t show mangled bodies, no graphic pictures. We don’t show images of dead children.’’

Danahar, in fact, has a counter-complaint. ‘‘The Indian media,’’ he says, ‘‘particularly print, is far more gratuitous in its use of bodies than the Western media.’’

A less extreme and more disinterested assessment comes from Ed Luce, south Asia bureau chief for Financial Times, who confesses he’s watched ‘‘only a bit of television in the past few days and most of it NDTV’’. One sight shocked him: ‘‘TV crew in helicopters just above the sea, off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, filming victims below. It was voyeuristic.’’

Comparing the deluge of bodies this time to the sanctity post-9/11, Luce shrugs, ‘‘I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this ... I suppose there are different standards, even if not specifically articulated.’’

that and Iraq pfft.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61777

 

[Hitokage]

With a death toll of ~100k and rising with social services and sanitation destroyed, this is a private matter?

 

[Dice]

1) In some ways I agree. In fact seeing all the suffering so much was making me start to cry whenever I'd watch, so I decided to stop watching TV coverage.

2) I think the situation might be bad enough that it is difficult to film anything without getting dead people and anguish in the frame.

 

[Kon Tiki]

Maybe the only way to get Americans to care about the death of people who are not American is to show them in great numbers. That or name some celebrities affected by this horrific event.

 

[teiresias]

I'm thinking along the same lines as Society. Particularly for Americans, the only way to get them to realize the magnitude of something that isn't happening in America is to show it graphically.

 

[Drey1082]

I never really thought about this before, but it's pretty true.

American tragedy like 9/11, don't show any of the bodies/ death

Internation tragedy like Tsunami's, show dead constantly in newspapers/ tv, etc.

Same thing with war in Iraq, you never see any footage of dead americans or death.

Not that I want to see these things, the double standard is very apparent.

 

[cybamerc]

When asked about its display of bodies now, in sharp contrast with 9/11, Cramer said: ‘‘On 9/11, if we showed no images of bodies, it was because they were no images to show. The bodies had been incinerated.’’

That's definitely a lie. Though it has to be said that the pictures I saw weren't suitable for TV.

 

[Flynn]

When disasters and wars happen, corpses are the result.

Not showing them is the crime.

The bigger issue in the coverage of this disaster is our news' tendancy to focus on Westerners/ white people. What makes some stupid model or Southern California vacationer more important than the thousands of locals?

 

[Meier]

How exactly would they do coverage of this without showing the dead? It's massive and widespread.. in 9/11, it was mostly centralized and its not as if the bodies remained lying around or something. They're examples of polar opposites.

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

This is a bunch of poppycock. This is probably the most destructive event in 5 to 6 generations. Had this happened during biblical times it would have made the Book. I don't think that 9/11 and the Tsunami coverage can even be equated. This event is something that has altered the rotation of the Earth. Also I don't think this is a "we don't want to see dead white people but, dead brown people are ok." How else can you document this event if you can't talk/show about the massive death and destruction that has encompassed the region.

I think the comparison does a disservice to victims of both tradigies.

The bigger issue in the coverage of this disaster is our news' tendancy to focus on Westerners/ white people. What makes some stupid model or Southern California vacationer more important than the thousands of locals?

The simple anwser is that it is realtively simple to translate English to English.

 

[MIMIC]

It didn't really matter to me at the time about the nationality of the person, but I was somewhat taken off guard when CNN showed a dead body floating face down in the water.

I was like, "Uhhh...they're showing dead people now?"

 

[MetatronM]

God forbid they show what's going on in the world.

 

[videogamer]

With a death toll of ~100k and rising with social services and sanitation destroyed, this is a private matter?

I wish the media would show the corpses from Iraq as they show the tsunami corpses. It's not so much the dead bodies that disturb me. It is the media bias.

 

[Santo]

Mainstream -US- media doesn't show the massive death toll in Iraq because it is restricted by the US gov't. US media is told they are NOT ALLOWED to report on Iraqi deaths, they don't want the American public to second guess us being over there.

As for a massive earthquake that killed 120,000+ in a blink of an eye, what the fuck do you expect? There's bodies EVERYWHERE in the affected regions, you simply can't be in the area and avoid them. It's devastating no doubt, but I think it's extremely important for everyone in the world to know how bad it really is. At the very least, it will garner more support to aid those in need.

 

[videogamer]

Mainstream -US- media doesn't show the massive death toll in Iraq because it is restricted by the US gov't. US media is told they are NOT ALLOWED to report on Iraqi deaths, they don't want the American public to second guess us being over there.

link?

As for a massive earthquake that killed 120,000+ in a blink of an eye, what the fuck do you expect? There's bodies EVERYWHERE in the affected regions, you simply can't be in the area and avoid them. It's devastating no doubt, but I think it's extremely important for everyone in the world to know how bad it really is. At the very least, it will garner more support to aid those in need.

imo, the media's job is to inform, not to shock its viewers

 

[Gattsu25]

I think it was political, yes, but also that the dead in the 9/11 footage would have been...how do you say...less whole?

 

[Flynn]

The simple anwser is that it is realtively simple to translate English to English.

So does that mean when something happens in a part of the world where there are no white English-speakers that Americana aren't interested?

Oh, wait. I guess you're right.

 

[XS+]

I know what the disparity is rooted in, but I won't say it for fear of getting flamed. Think about it.

 

[MASB]

So does that mean when something happens in a part of the world where there are no white English-speakers that Americana aren't interested?

Oh, wait. I guess you're right.

No, it just means that more translators would have to be sent to the region to get the story. You're just as ignorant and biased in your own way as the Americans you decry.

As for the BBC/CNN, I think there probably is some kind of bias of a sort. The reasons they gave were perfectly acceptable, but if one were inclined to see bias, I could see where that would fit in. They should try to be more evenhanded and try to use the same procedures in most events. Either show the bodies (if 'intact' ones remain) or don't show them, but try not to pick and choose which events you choose to show the bodies.

As for privacy, I don't think there's any real right or wrong answer to that. Both sides are right. The families should have privacy, but the news organizations should get the story out and that entails a certain amount of intrusion on privacy. But the organizations should try not to make it blatant. You can only show so many grieving parents before it becomes more of a shock tactic than being informative.

 

[Ill Saint]

imo, the media's job is to inform, not to shock its viewers

Are you saying that by broadcasting the severity of the situation (which includes bodies), the media is simply out to shock its viewers? The situation is such that death is on a mass scale. Bodies and grieving people are a part of the reality of this tragedy.

 

[luxsol]

Mainstream -US- media doesn't show the massive death toll in Iraq because it is restricted by the US gov't. US media is told they are NOT ALLOWED to report on Iraqi deaths, they don't want the American public to second guess us being over there.

Huh? I've seen MSNBC, CNN, or any other 24/7 news channel report on Iraqi deaths and also US military deaths as well. After every US death, they almost always report the total number dead.

With Iraqi deaths, it's not always reported on total number dead, but sometimes I hear estimates given when a large number of Iraqi deaths happen. Like with that Iraqi police station that was taken over and its officers were executed.

Honestly, I haven't paid attention to the numbers because I know they'll always report them later on. Last time i did pay attention was when my western civ history teacher said the same thing, so i recorded an incident involving the murder of a mayor and how the total deaths of Iraqi civilians being 50,000 something (after major military conflict ended). This was a while ago though, and haven't paid much attention the numbers.

 

[snapty00]

Uh, am I the only one who thinks it's stupid to make a race between which tragedy is "worse" to begin with?

Seriously, some of you folks are just as bad as the person who wrote that without even realizing it.

 

[The Chosen One]

Normally I might object, but this is a hand of God disaster. As someone just said, over 100K people died in a blink of an eye. Usually Americans at large could care less about catastrophes in other parts of the world. It's usually on the news for a couple of days, then it's forgotten. Even when Haiti (which is fairly close by) recently suffered thousands of deaths due to flooding, the American public barely flinched.

So even though CNN might go overboard a bit with their Tsunami coverage, I'm okay with it if it means more American eyes are opened to the enormity of this disaster. It seems to be working because there's already a huge outpouring of donations.

Frankly, it's frightening to see the death toll increase by such large margins each day...

 

[videogamer]

Are you saying that by broadcasting the severity of the situation (which includes bodies), the media is simply out to shock its viewers? The situation is such that death is on a mass scale. Bodies and grieving people are a part of the reality of this tragedy.

In some of the posts, there is an implication that the media needs to "wow" the viewers and make them aware of the severity of the event.

snapty: what makes the writer so "bad"?

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

So does that mean when something happens in a part of the world where there are no white English-speakers that Americana aren't interested?

Depends on the American. You would do well the realize that Americans don't move and think as one monolith block. Let's look at it realistically. All the native people of the affected areas are in the process of helping clear the dead and restore order. It is much easier to talk to someone who speaks in your language so you can get some sort of a story out and give people an idea of what is going on as oppoesd to attempting to dragging two people from the important tasks of the day so one can ask the other one how he feels about watching his wife and kids float away.

Oh, wait. I guess you're right.

Indeed I am.

 

[The Faceless Master]

i think cnn should just film the clouds in the sky, the animals that survived and a looping tape of all the handcam tsunami rolling in footage since there are bodies everywhere below waist height...

and i wish they'd show bodies in iraq too..

 

[Ecrofirt]

the front page of my local paper today was a picture of rows and rows of dead bodies from the tsunami.

Completely unnecessary.

 

[Santo]

Huh? I've seen MSNBC, CNN, or any other 24/7 news channel report on Iraqi deaths and also US military deaths as well. After every US death, they almost always report the total number dead.

With Iraqi deaths, it's not always reported on total number dead, but sometimes I hear estimates given when a large number of Iraqi deaths happen. Like with that Iraqi police station that was taken over and its officers were executed.

Honestly, I haven't paid attention to the numbers because I know they'll always report them later on. Last time i did pay attention was when my western civ history teacher said the same thing, so i recorded an incident involving the murder of a mayor and how the total deaths of Iraqi civilians being 50,000 something (after major military conflict ended). This was a while ago though, and haven't paid much attention the numbers.

Reporters in the field embedded with US troops are the ones not allowed to report on Iraqi deaths, news networks are allowed to but their numbers are just fed to them by the Pentagon, not by their own research. I can dig up the source in the morning, it's from one of my papers I got (which was a photocopy from the NY Times) earlier this year in my sociology class.

The total number of Iraqi dead is probably too hard to measure at this point but last month it was reported by the BBC that over 150,000 innocent Iraqi women and children have been maimed or murdered since the beginning of the war.

 

[Fresh Prince]

I never really thought about this before, but it's pretty true.

American tragedy like 9/11, don't show any of the bodies/ death

Internation tragedy like Tsunami's, show dead constantly in newspapers/ tv, etc.

Same thing with war in Iraq, you never see any footage of dead americans or death.

Not that I want to see these things, the double standard is very apparent.

IAWTP.
However I remember seeing mass buriels of Croatians before the Balkans Conflict. However all the dead were in coffins.

 

[Gattsu25]

I never really thought about this before, but it's pretty true.

American tragedy like 9/11, don't show any of the bodies/ death

Internation tragedy like Tsunami's, show dead constantly in newspapers/ tv, etc.

Same thing with war in Iraq, you never see any footage of dead americans or death.

Not that I want to see these things, the double standard is very apparent.

This is my theory without giving much thought:

9/11 = Body pieces. Chunks of flesh and bone, half crushed bodies, dismembered limbs.
Tsunami = Bodies in tact and not yet bloated.
Iraq = Bloody. Gunshot wounds, burned/ripped flesh.



This is not an excuse for FoxNews - The network that (in the few minutes I watched them) couldn't talk about the Tsunami without having to end EVERY FUCKING SEGMENT in this fashion: And now the death toll rises and more Americans might turn up dead. In more important news: Holiday shopping is over and the preperations for ..."

This is not an excuse for CNN - The network that (in the few minutes I watched them) thought it important to stress the number of safe western tourist and dead western tourists over any other piece of information.

 

[Crow357]

Yeah, I hate it when they lead a story with, "3 Americans died today along with 99,997 others".

I think the enormity of the death in this situation IS most of the story and the bodies need to be shown. Perhaps this isn't like this in other parts of the world, but unfortunately, most Americans are moved by pictures. And we need to have alot of em to do something. So, in this instance, showing all of the pictures is prolly a good thing for the people that need the help.

About the difference in coverage between 9/11 and the Tsunami, I don't know. Maybe because the Tsunami was accidental and 9/11 was an unprovoked attack.

 

[Flynn]

No, it just means that more translators would have to be sent to the region to get the story. You're just as ignorant and biased in your own way as the Americans you decry.

What kind of journalism are we talking about when getting a translator is too much trouble?

 

[Shinobi]

That's definitely a lie. Though it has to be said that the pictures I saw weren't suitable for TV.

I think it was political, yes, but also that the dead in the 9/11 footage would have been...how do you say...less whole?

As Gattu went onto say a couple posts above mine, that's the legit difference. From the accounts I read about 9/11, there was no fucking way the networks could show ANY of the carnage from that day, even if they wanted to.

Everybody knows about my disdain for the media, and a lot of times I rip 'em just to rip 'em. And indeed they've been a little too gleeful showing videos of people getting washed away like twigs to their graves. But I also have to be fair. Nobody over here (at least that I know of) showed a single corpse from among the 190 people that died in the Spanish train attacks earlier this year...probably for the reason I stated above. In the case of the videos I've seen this week, none of the bodies look so badly disfigured that they'd be considered repulsive or extremely distasteful. I'm sure we've all heard and read the accounts of the numerous corpses that have bloated up or decompossed to such a horrible state...as of now, I've yet to see anything like that on TV. So the networks are finding a balance.

And quite frankly, saying the death toll figure on it's own (at least for the first couple days) wasn't really doing much for me in terms of comprehending how grave the situation is. The video footage I have seen has brought some of that home. Though the most depressing footage I've seen to date was probably from the village where 80% of it was totaled...there are no words for that.

So that's the basic difference I think...when people have met violent deaths, where the bodies look completely different to how they normally look (meaning not intact or horribly disfigured), they tend not to show that stuff. Where bodies are simply bodies, they feel that's fine to show. I'm sure some people think there isn't a difference even there, but personally I understand it and endorse it. This is one time where I'll actually defend the media, heh.

I would say that showing people basically meeting their death is grisely ass shit though...and it wasn't just one or two people either. I think that's a legit criticism, though it can be argued that the only footage they had at the beginning of the week had such people, and showing those unfortunate souls was a byproduct of showing what damage the waves did. As others have said, it's gonna be hard to show something that's responsible for over 120,000 deaths without getting a couple of those victims in the frame.


Oh yeah, news agencies leading with the handful of dead from their own territory and then going "Oh BTW, another 100,000 from elsewhere also didn't make it" is just ridiculous...always hated that style of coverage.

 

[MrPing1000]

american overreaction

 

[Socreges]

This is not an excuse for FoxNews - The network that (in the few minutes I watched them) couldn't talk about the Tsunami without having to end EVERY FUCKING SEGMENT in this fashion: And now the death toll rises and more Americans might turn up dead. In more important news: Holiday shopping is over and the preperations for ..."

"CHILD CAR SEATS: MURDER MACHINES?? ....find out after the break! *shuffles papers*"

 

[Dsal]

I was eating at this place that had CNN on. They showed footage of the waves crashing down and such. Then the next moment, for some reason, they spent a lot of time talking about some model that survived. The really stupid thing was that they kept looping stock footage of the model gallivanting around during photo shoots during the whole thing as they were talking to her. How do you justify switching your visuals to that?

 

[Kon Tiki]

"CHILD CAR SEATS: MURDER MACHINES?? ....find out after the break! *shuffles papers*"

Heh, been listening to the commentary on Simpsons season 5 dvd>

 

[Socreges]

Heh, been listening to the commentary on Simpsons season 5 dvd>

Actually, no. Don't have it. What was that similar to?

 

[Kon Tiki]

Actually, no. Don't have it. What was that similar to?

They just mention how they(Simpsons writers) try to make the News on the show come off as scary. Poking fun at Foxnews specially. I think the line they used was 'Your kids are in danger!!! Tune in at 11 to find out how', or close to it.

 

[LakeEarth]

They just mention how they(Simpsons writers) try to make the News on the show come off as scary. Poking fun at Foxnews specially. I think the line they used was 'Your kids are in danger!!! Tune in at 11 to find out how', or close to it.

"It turns out that a popular cola is actually lethal. We won't tell you which one until after sports, news, and the weather!"

 

[Phoenix]

Same thing with war in Iraq, you never see any footage of dead americans or death.

US military command asked for that information to be censored and in some instances required it to be censored from air for embedded press units. The footage does exist - its just not aired.

There are also various 'international laws/understandings' about showing casualties and prisoners when dealing with wars and other conflicts so many news agencies err on the side of caution. There are no such 'soft restrictions' (because they don't have to obey them), with respect to tragedies.

 

[Shinobi]

With that said, you gotta wonder how the footage of the two US soldiers that were turned into barbequed meat stacks and kicked around like a soccer ball not only got out, but made it into a documentry...

 

[luxsol]

Reporters in the field embedded with US troops are the ones not allowed to report on Iraqi deaths, news networks are allowed to but their numbers are just fed to them by the Pentagon, not by their own research. I can dig up the source in the morning, it's from one of my papers I got (which was a photocopy from the NY Times) earlier this year in my sociology class.

The total number of Iraqi dead is probably too hard to measure at this point but last month it was reported by the BBC that over 150,000 innocent Iraqi women and children have been maimed or murdered since the beginning of the war.

So, really, what's the difference other than being told by the government the number of deaths? I'm sure these news media companies also check the numbers the Pentagon gives them to see if its accurate. There isn't a lot that i see posted here on GAF that i don't see on US news. I can watch a lot of foreign news stations on digital cable, but sometimes i wonder if these are censored.

The only other difference i see between foreign and US news is that foreign news shows the more graphic videos. There are special news reports done by CNN and MSNBC that report about the daily lives of Iraqi citizens that doesn't paint a pretty picture about US soldiers and their patrols. They also talk about the crime and murders that go on daily too.

I'm not saying that the US media isn't censored or whatever. I just want to know if there is something that isn't said on US news that isn't shown or talked about.