A comment on the attempt of the US Gov't to censor the NO body clean-up

You know, I don't like to get into politics here, but when it comes to media censorship of events of public interest, I have something to say.

Judge Ellison: good call on issuing the temporary restraining order against the gov't enforcing their announced 'zero access' policy for media coverage of the Katrina clean up, particularly the body retrieval.

First it's 'no pictures of the coffins of dead soldiers returning from Iraq' and now it's 'no photos of the Katrina bodies.' How about this instead: we let the media cover these situations in a way that they and their viewers deem tasteful. This is certainly preferable to having the administration censoring things that reflect badly on them.

The attempts at censoring media coverage inevitably creates the appearance that the administration has something to hide and as though they lack confidence in the ability of the media to cover, and the public to view, these images in a fair manner. Frankly, after the handling of the Katrina situation I'm not surprised that the gov't is scrambling, but attempts at censorship of public events just creates news in itself that, in turn, makes the gov't look worse. Surely Karl Rove, the mastermind of Bush's marketing team, knows this.

No matter what team you root for, Republicans or Democrats, this sort of activity should really irk you. Whether you prefer Fox News or PBS, you sure as hell should want the independent media making choices about what is news rather than having the gov't picking what can and cannot be shown to you.

Government censorship is disagreeable in any situation.

CNN.com - U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches - Sep 10, 2005