OPENING SHOT
Seeing the Real War
Chances are you never saw this photo. No U.S. outlet published it. The face of death, even one that appears almost serene, is all but taboo in our press, especially when the face is American. Nor are you likely to have seen many of the bloodier war photos that we perused for this space, the kind that put gaping wounds at eye level. After Vietnam our government limited press access to war, but that has been less true this time around, when some restrictions seem self-imposed. Our society, shaped by geographic and cultural isolation, sees the world through a lens of technological wizardry that at once shrinks it and gives us greater discretion to choose how and when we engage with it. And our media companies have a powerful interest in a news report that goes down well with the morning oatmeal. As CJR goes to press, the capture of Saddam can be seen over and over again (and is big news indeed), but visuals of maimed Americans and Iraqis cannot. The point of seeing such images, Susan Sontag writes in Regarding the Pain of Others, is not shock or guilt. They are “an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalizations for mass suffering offered by established power.” A job for the press.
War photography and editorial illustration are different planets, but they orbit the same visual sun. And the self-censorship described above is not unrelated to the self-censorship explored in our cover story, “Little Murders,” by Jesse Sunenblick. Also in this issue, Trudy Lieberman figures out why interviewees no longer feel compelled to “Answer the &%$#* Question!”; Neil Hickey handicaps the great New York tabloid war. Gal Beckerman visits an American Jewish newspaper that talks back to the Jewish establishment and Eric Umansky introduces a Palestinian pollster who won’t play Arafat’s game. And more. We hope you enjoy it.
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