How The U.S. Press Has Sanitized The War in Iraq

Images of thousands of dead U.S. soldiers helped to turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War, but now photo-journalists are even banned from military funerals at Arlington national cemetery. A report this weekend in the Los Angeles Times documented the extremely rare publication of photos of American casualties in six major newspapers during a sixth month period. Readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post never saw a single picture of a dead serviceman or servicewoman in their morning papers.

The latest attacks came as American and Iraqi forces are conducting a joint offensive in Baghdad. The US military announced that over 420 people were arrested in just over 30 hours during the sweep dubbed "Operation Squeeze Play."

Five US troops have also been killed in the past two days. But Americans almost never see photographs from Iraq showing U.S. troops killed in action. Images of thousands of dead U.S. soldiers helped to turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War, but now photo-journalists are even banned from military funerals at Arlington national cemetery. A report this weekend in the Los Angeles Times documented the extremely rare publication of photos of American casualties in six major newspapers during a sixth month period. Readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post never saw a single picture of a dead serviceman in their morning papers.

We're joined on the phone by L.A. Times reporter James Rainey who wrote the story. And in the studio we are joined by veteran journalist Sidney Schanberg, now the media columnist for the Village Voice. Schanberg has covered wars in India, Vietnam and Cambodia and won a Pulitzer prize in 1976 for his reporting on the rise of the Kmer Rouge and dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia. Last week, he wrote a piece in the Village Voice calling on journalists not to omit important information and images out of "timidity or squeamishness." He writes that the reason governments seek to censor and sanitize wartime coverage is "to prevent a public outcry against the war, an outcry that might bring down the administration." We are also joined by Pacifica Radio reporter Aaron Glantz. He spent months covering the occupation of Iraq and is author of the new book "How America Lost Iraq."

• James Rainey, reporter at the Los Angeles Times, author of the report, "Unseen Pictures, Untold Stories" published on Saturday in the Times
• Sidney Schanberg, veteran journalist formerly at the New York Times and Newsday. Won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for reporting on the rise of the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia.
• Aaron Glantz, reporter for Pacifica Radio. He spent months covering the occupation of Iraq and is author of the new book "How America Lost Iraq."

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined on the phone by Los Angeles Times reporter, James Rainey, who wrote the story. In the studio with us, veteran journalist, Sidney Schanberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from Vietnam, now media columnist for The Village Voice. Schanberg has covered wars in India, Vietnam, Cambodia. We are also joined by Aaron Glantz. He is a Pacifica reporter who wrote the book, How America Lost Iraq. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I want to begin with the L.A. Times reporter, James Rainey. Tell us what you found, the actual count on these pictures?

JAMES RAINEY: Well, what we did is we started in September of last year and went through the end of February of this year. We wanted a manageable period, because that's a lot of newspapers to look at. We also wanted to take in some of the major fighting, which was the assault on Fallujah last November, and then the run-up to the election, which I think everybody remembers was pretty bloody. So, we looked at the six newspapers and we looked at Time and Newsweek, and what we found is what you already stated, essentially, that the readers of those publications didn't see any U.S. dead. They saw very few pictures of U.S. wounded. There was one of the eight publications we looked at, The Seattle Times did run a picture of a U.S. serviceman who was killed. He was covered with a blanket. It was after the mess hall bombing last December near Mosul. So that was -- those were our findings in terms of U.S. casualties. Very few pictures.

AMY GOODMAN: Sidney Schanberg, you certainly covered the Vietnam War and your colleagues did by bringing home the images, whether in description or photo. Can you talk about this? You also write extensively about this in The Village Voice.

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: Well, I think I can tell you that American reporters have always been careful not to show, certainly not to show the face, identifiable face of a fallen soldier who is dead, and still do that. And that's -- I think that's a useful guide, a taste guide in terms of whether you are going to over-shock people or not. But we always showed pictures of fallen soldiers in Vietnam, and we, as Jim Rainey points out, we see almost none of them in the Iraq war. This censorship has been going on for a long time. I mean, if we go back to the Gulf War, you remember, reporters had to be taken by babysitters, Pentagon babysitters, to stories, and the soldiers that they met on these stories had been pre-interviewed by the same babysitters, so that no truth might slip out during the interviews with the journalist. So -- and we acceded, the major news organizations acceded to those ground rules. And --