Should AP photo of dying Marine be published?
On Friday, I was interviewed on CNN's "Situation Room" for a story about the AP distributing a photograph of a seriously wounded Marine in Afghanistan. The Marine, Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, died on the operating table not long after the bloody picture was taken. He had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
I am not posting the picture here, nor is the "Sun" publishing it in the paper. CNN also has chosen not to show it. In the CNN interview, I said that if I was an editor of a newspaper, I would not publish the picture. But I also said it is a complicated issue, and that I understood AP's argument for distributing it.
Here's is a link to the "Situation Room" transcript. Here is a link to an online site where you can see the image of the wounded Marine if you want. But before you click to see the image, you should know the Marine's parents asked AP not to publish the picture -- and now strenuously object to the news service's decision to do so.
UPDATE SUNDAY MORNING: You can read the comments of Corporal Bernard's father, John, on the issue in reaction to this post by clicking on comments below.
I want to know what readers think -- especially men and women who served in the military.
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