New military policy ends an 18-year-old "form of censorship"

The NY Times reported yesterday that the news media will now be allowed to photograph the coffins of America’s war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States, so long as the families of the dead agree.

Santiago Lyon, the directory of photography for the AP, called the ban a form of censorship. “The public has a right to see and to know what their military is doing, and they have a right to see the cost of that military action,” he said.

The ban on photographs of coffins of war dead was established in 1991 by the first President Bush, after he was part of an embarrassing incident aired on live television. From the NY Times article:

"In 1989, the television networks showed split-screen images of Mr. Bush sparring and joking with reporters on one side and a military honor guard unloading coffins from a military action that he had ordered in Panama on the other.

Mr. Bush, a World War II veteran, was caught unaware and subsequently asked the networks to warn the White House when they planned to use split screens. The networks declined.

At the next opportunity, in February 1991 during the Persian Gulf war, the Pentagon banned photos of returning coffins."

For more information on the DOD coffin images policy, read Return of the Fallen, an article in The George Washington University's National Security Archive.