Existing comment:
From Embedding to You Tube: The Present
Changes in US government policy and technology have created a new environment for war zone reporting.
US Resumes Media Controls
Beginning with the Persian Gulf campaign in 1990-1991, the United States government reversed course and reinstituted press censorship rules in war zones. Journalists or photographs wanting to cover US military personnel in combat zones are required to sign binding embedded agreements. These include different restrictions on photos of American troops than of combatants from other countries. The following is an example:
14. Media will not be prohibited from viewing or filming casualties; however, casualty photographs showing recognizable face, name tag or other identifying feature or item will not be published. In respect to our family members, names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member's prior written consent. If the service members died of his wounds, next-of-kin reporting rules then apply. Media should contact the PAO for release advice.
The few times a photo of a dying American appeared, US officials reacted negatively. On September 4, 2009 AP (Associated Press) distributed a photograph of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard after he had been morally wounded in a firefight in Afghanistan.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates:
Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this images of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right -- but judgement and common decency.
Photographer Julie Jacobson and AP had followed the embed rules in place at the time, something Secretary Gates did not dispute. The AP responded to Secretary Gates that the picture was run because it "... conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it."
A Los Angeles Times study of photos published during six months of the Iraqi conflict in 2005 showed one effect of this policy. US publications ran numerous photos of dead Iraqis but virtually none of Americans.
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