It's a matter of perspective

Wretchard has been blogging heavily about the execution of Iraqi election workers and the photographs of the incident taken by an AP photographer. He's even prompted a reaction from Salon defending the photographer. I'm not going to plow the same ground as Wretchard, because I agree completely with the points he's making about transparency in the media.

However, there was one graf that I felt I needed to expand upon.

Yet ironically we do know Mr. O'Brien, who at least has a name, while we will probably never know the identity of the "brave Iraqi" photographer who captured the execution of Iraqi election worker on Haifa Street. Jack Stokes, the Associated Press director of media relations explained how that photographer was recruited.

Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It's important to note, though, that the photographers are not "embedded" with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

First of all, they aren't insurgents. They're terrorists. By every reasonable definition of insurgent, they are not people who execute innocent civilians who are they're fellow countrymen.

The American Heritage dictionary defines terrorism as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." The act of executing election workers publicly in the street fits this definition to a tee. It's time for news outlets to stop lying about Islamofacism and use proper terminology if they want to retain any respect at all in the communities that they serve.

But that's not my main point. Jack Stokes states, "Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people....." I have no doubt that's true, but my question to AP is why do you feel compelled to tell their story? To put it another way, if a group in America was advocating the overthrow of the government and decided to execute some American election works publicly in the street, would you feel compelled to tell their story? Or would you simply report the facts? Would you notify the authorities that a murder was about to take place? Or would you withhold that information, making your photographer an accessory to the crime? Aren't Al Jazeera and other Arab propaganda outlets doing a good enough job of covering the terrorists' stories? Are there no stories of Americans in Iraq left to be told?

I discussed recently how writers carefully choose their words. It is equally true that news outlets carefully choose their stories. My blog is a perfect example. I read many stories that I never blog about. The things I blog about are the things that I think are important, the things that I feel compelled to comment on, the things that matter to me. The same is true of the AP and every other news organization. So I have to ask, why is the terrorists' story important to AP? Why does it matter more than the many other stories in Iraq that could be told? Why are public executions newsworthy, but many positive news stories are not? More to the point - why are terrorists' stories important, but American military men's stories are not?

UPDATE: Roger Simon joins the fray.