Photographing the fallen

Josh Marshall writes about the woman working for Maytag Aircraft who photographed the flag draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers being loaded on a cargo plane in Iraq. Her intent was to show the care and respect she and her team showed the dead. The photograph, sent to a friend, made it to the Seattle Times, was published. The woman -- and her husband who also works for Maytag -- were fired.

Adding insult to injury, today it's announced that the web site thememoryhole.org had won their freedom of information lawsuit against the Pentagon and over 300 photographs of flag draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers were released.

"Executives at news organizations, many of whom have protested the policy, said last night that they had not known that the Defense Department itself was taking photographs of the coffins arriving home, a fact that came to light only when Russ Kick, the operator of The Memory Hole, filed his request.

"'We were not aware at all that these photos were being taken,' said Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times.

"John Banner, the executive producer of ABC's 'World News Tonight,' said, 'We did not file a F.O.I.A. request ourselves, because this was the first we had known that the military was shooting these pictures.'"

The mainstream press didn't think to ask. Kind of sums up a lot about coverage of this war's causes and effects.