community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
A picture's worth a thousand words
by Seven Oaks
Monday, May. 10, 2004 at 11:12 PM
“It is the photographs that give one the vivid realisation of what actually took place. Words don't do it.” — Donald Rumsfeld, May 7, 2004.
Derrick O'Keefe
A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Thirty-five years ago, images of the massacre of civilians in the village of My Lai helped to turn the American people against the war in Vietnam.
This April, the Pentagon got upset at some of the “free press” for publishing photos of caskets of dead American soldiers, fearing that it would weaken the already tepid public support for the war in Iraq. Those photos, though, quickly became irrelevant, with the release of images of ghastly abuse and torture against Iraqi inmates in the U.S.-run prison at Abu Ghraib.
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