September 8, 2005

Bodies of the Dead

The Anchoress speaks for me in Echoes of Madame DeFarge.  I can add nothing to her eloquent outrage.

…shouldn’t common decency for our fellow human beings preclude the exposure of our dead to sell papers and garner ratings?
Oh, I know, I know, I know, some are saying their are “noble” reasons for showing the dead. What might those be, please? Because I am trying to understand why the press quite rightly decided that NONE of the dead of 9/11 should be shown (after the first day or so’s shock wore off), but now believe that Katrina’s dead should be put on display.
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Please tell me how, suddenly, it would be quite all right for some distressed evacuee, now living in a Texas shelter, to look up at a television screen and see a bloated, discolored “Grandma!” floating in the filthy water. Please tell me how, suddenly, it would be a positive thing for a child to see his dead, disheveled mother, or for some mother to see her floating, half-eaten baby?
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I don’t care how much you hate the president and want to do his presidency harm - it is indecent and grossly insensitive to the surviving family members of these folks to put their bodies on public display.

There is news reporting, and then there is cruel and gratuitous, sensationalistic voyeurism, which serves nothing but a malicious feeling, and a base instinct.

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Posted by Jill Fallon at September 8, 2005 1:33 AM | Permalink