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“Like many journalists,” writes Steve Outing, “I’m incensed that FEMA this week issued a “request” that news organizations not show dead bodies in coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and clean-up. I join my industry colleagues in urging editors to make that decision on their own, without considering federal officials’ politically self-serving advice.”
Graphic and distrubing images will run in blogs and turn up on Flickr, he says, because citizen photographers “are not worrying about issues like whether or not it’s ethical to photograph dead bodies and publish the images.”
It’s mind boggling that the Federal government, which prohibits the photography of caskets from Iraq and of limbless soldiers in military hospitals, thinks this kind of advisory would have any impact.