] A few months before I went to the Congo, I'd had a
] discussion here on Slate with Luc Sante, during which I
] argued that American news venues had not just the right
] but the duty to publish photographs of atrocities. At the
] time I had, of course, seen those sorts of pictures, but
] I'd never taken them. Now that I have, I'm not so sure.
] It's not that the public deserves to be spared such
] things, because they don't. It's just that I no longer
] think that what happens when horrifying pictures are
] published has anything to do with journalism.

[ italics mine

This is a fantastic article from Slate, which I encourage everyone to read. It treats a meme that's been floating around at various levels of conciousness for a while now, but which has new currency in the context of the Falujah desecrations and the probable increase of violence in the Iraqi resistance. This meme has also shared DNA with the controversy about The Passion and the graphic nature of the film... where is the line between intense storytelling and pornography? This is a definite keeper. -k]

] So pictures of horror, at a certain point, no longer
] function as news; they become, themselves, the news. The
] papers that have run the photographs from Fallujah have
] been getting scores of letters from readers, some
] appreciative, some not. But that's just the problem: It's
] a fine thing when readers think about what their local
] papers do, but on the whole, one would rather they were
] thinking about Iraq.