Associated Press Shame.

[Bogey]

Despite pleadings from the Pentagon and Family the AP ignored all decency and published photos of Lance Corporal  Joshua Bernard, age 21 as he lay dying in the arms of fellow Marines in Afganistan.  He had sustained severe wounds from an RPG.  His legs had been blown away.

Associated Press CEO Tom Curley thought this was the thing to do.   Are Newspaper sales that poor??  

What Parasites.

[HILMAN76]

The sick crap they will do for ratings :( Imagine being the family of that soldier actually watching the last minutes of his life in the media.  Very poor judgment :( :( :(

[North Pack]

This is the AP we're talking about here, - nothing but scum on their best day.

[MartinDWhite]

I wonder if that will linger in the minds of soldiers in the field the next time that AP photographer is stand near them during a firefight?

[Gene_SC]

For sure bad for the moral guys. In my day we would destroy their camera's. Ignore them. We all knew what they were doing there and knew they were blood suckers. Not many of them were allowed where I was but they never did get any good stories or pictures from us.

[EdNunya]

I'm pretty sure they have distroyed a ton of good will that has been built up over the years of "embedding"...

Frankly, while I was on active duty, reporters and photographers didn't get a lot of respect, mostly a  well earned reaction IMHO...Heck, we really didn't talk much to even the Base newspaper folks, and they were aledgedly on our side!  

I had a lot of contact with them while on recruiting duty up in the Hartford area... We had over 80 CT residents on active duty,boots on the ground  in the Beriut area, when the barracks was hit by the truck bomb....  Out of them 12 from CT were killed...  The 2 Marine reserve units were overwhelmed with Casualty calls... One young Marine was from my area of responsibility, and the 1st Sgt from Charlie Co called me to see if I could help them by meeting the plane, helping the family and the escorts until they could break someone loose to take over..

I drove out to the airport, met the Dad and brother there...  We were briefed on the plane's arrival, where we would meet the plane out on the mat, etc...  

I went over to where the press was waiting, and explained to them that the casket was to be removed from the shipping container, and the National Colors would be unfolded from where it had been on the "shoulder" of the casket and draped... I also told them I expected them to wait until the escorts had finished before I heard a single shutter trip, and to please  leave the family alone, if they wanted to talk to them, they would approach them...  From way above and over my shoulder (I'm 5 ft 8, not very tall) I hear a deep voice say " And if you can't follow simple instructions like that, you can answer to me" ..   Looking over my shoulder i see the largest Ct State Trooper I have ever met...  Was a very well behaved group of reporters and photographers that day....

To this day I rarely bother with the press...


73
Semper Fi
Ed