To Important For Consistency

“You don’t appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it.” Aaron Brown, CNN.

The Big Time Media knows what's best for you. You need to see every single Abu Ghraib picture the media can find. But, you are not to view Nick Berg's beheading. And, you cannot see pictures of partial birth abortion.

What determines what picture the media will show you seems to depend upon their agenda, not, as Aaron Brown phrased it, a need to appreciate.

[I]f, as Brown argued, graphic detail is essential to understanding stories, why did the media agonize over (and largely suppress) close-up photos of the dismembered bodies of the four American civilians murdered and torched at Fallujah? The tape of Berg being beheaded is in the public domain. Why doesn’t Aaron Brown demand that CNN show it so that we can better understand terrorism? And why did the networks and the print media withhold the grisly 9/11 pictures of bodies hitting the ground at the World Trade Center? Many factors are at work here, in­cluding queasiness about pouring violent images into family newspapers and broadcasts. But surely one factor is a semi­conscious double standard: The media are more likely to show what is done by Americans than what is done to Americans. Group attitudes about American power and values tend to affect news judgment. No surprise there.

John Leo notes not just this, but other glaring double standards in reporting.