Government censorship in America. Of course, George Bush doesn't want you to see the reality in the Gulf States. Fortunately, the media isn't taking it kindly to FEMA's request not to take pictures of the dead:
Rebecca Daugherty of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press found [FEMA's] stance inexplicable.Next thing we'll hear is that they aren't counting the dead bodies anymore either.
"The notion that, when there's very little information from FEMA, that they would even spend the time to be concerned about whether the reporting effort is up to its standards of taste is simply mind-boggling," Daugherty said. "You cannot report on the disaster and give the public a realistic idea of how horrible it is if you don't see that there are bodies as well."
FEMA's policy of excluding media from recovery expeditions in New Orleans is "an invitation to chaos," according to Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a part of Columbia University's journalism school.
"This is about managing images and not public taste or human dignity," Rosenstiel said. He said FEMA's refusal to take journalists along on recovery missions meant that media workers would go on their own.
Too bad FEMA didn't show as much concern for these people before they died.
