What We Don't Know Won't Hurt Us...Or Will It?

During our lecture and reading assignment on the history of IC, I picked up on a topic that I found still resonates with the media and society: censoring visual images during war. Our reading indicated that The Crimean War--the first to be reported on and photographed--laid the foundation of wartime censorship. Photographer Robert Fenton took pictures depicting the war in a way which contrasted with the wire reports people read (or heard) about. Our reading implied that there was a high demand for war photographs, since graphic images of carnage hadn't been seen before, and people were frustrated from a lack of accurate images. Stateside, American Civil war photographer, Mathew Brady, felt compelled to document glory battles and their aftermath, most notably at Antietam, due to very little censorship and an initial high demand. I'm not sure if it was overexposure or simply exhaustion from war--or both, but Americans stopped paying for, and lost interest in seeing, graphic and tragic battle pictures.

While we didn't dive too deeply into this topic in class today--I'm sure we'll cover it later in another class, I thought I'd bring up some thoughts for feedback. Censoring war photos goes back 160 years, and I'm sure it wasn't difficult for people to realize then, as we do now, how scaring visual images could be. World War Two and the Vietnam War are two contrasting examples--one with heightened censorship, with visuals selected and screened, and the other broadcast into living rooms around the country every night. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that some censorship is necessary for security purposes, yet I think the government seems to have difficulty walking the fine line between between informing the public about the consequences of warfare (risking a loss of moral) and keeping the public in the dark (risking ignorance and detachment). I remember censoring Iraq War photos was a big deal a few years ago, especially whether or not to show the flag covered coffins coming into Dover. There was some back and forth between the government and news agencies if they had the right to, and if it was in good taste. A few of my college professors declared that the Bush administration learned a lesson from Vietnam about limiting exposure to maximize moral.(Not to mention what we're seeing now from the Wikileak video showing civilians killed by American artillery, which took place a while ago and has only come out in the past year.) So that's what this week's reading made me think about and I thought I'd throw out some questions for your view points: When is it appropriate for the government or media outlets to start or stop censoring what we see? If we see to may images, graphic or otherwise, are we in danger of being even more detached or desensitized than we are now? How does our international standing hold up if we choose not to view or publish what damage we inflict or what war does to our soldiers, or theirs?