Extra Discussion: Sight Unseen

I only recently listened to this and the discussion of it may already be dead. But for anyone that sees this did anyone else hear a huge amount of hypocrisy being overlooked in this episode?

I generally liked the episode, but these are some of the things I took issue with and thought were ignored or overlooked:

  • When Lynsey is told she cannot use the photos without next of kin's permission, she compares this to Vietnam and the lack of such rules. When she calls the father who's dead son she has photos of though her first reaction when it comes to these photos is not "Here they are" it's "Can I use them".

  • When asked by this persons father to see them instead of "Yes sir, right away sir" it's "I'm not sure you want to see them" becoming the censor herself. Now her reason is the graphic nature of the photo but this ignores that they were meant for a huge article anyway that the father would have likely seen.

  • As a Journalist she would "never ever ever show" becoming more of a censor than the military who has so far only asked you get the person's permission or lacking that next of kin.

  • She is legally bound not to show them without Time's permission to protect their story. Another censor that is on the journalism side and not the Goverment or Military.

Those were issues I had with how this story was shown as it was.

Personally, I have a few more issues with the overall message. I actually served in the military when lots of people don't and more importantly lots of people don't even want to hear about it good or bad.

While I agree were I to have died in a battle I would have wanted my death to be counted and my name to be said. If I has a person and not a cog in the military machine don't want that death shown, or my family doesn't, as the person who actually signed up to a completely voluntary military don't I have the right to say no, tell of my death, count me among the fallen but don't show my death.

Why do the people who chose not to involve themselves in the war get to determine how the deaths in it are mentioned or at the very least have more rights to their death then soldiers, people, in a war?

/r/Radiolab Thread