The Case of the U.S. Marines and Photojournalist Zoriah Miller

By DAVID PAULIN

In the latest instance of the military's uneasy relationship in Iraq with the news media, U.S. Marine commanders expelled an embedded photojournalist for doing something they considered unforgivable -- snapping grisly photos of dead Marines, and posting them on his website.

The case of photojournalist Zoriah Miller, a 32-year-old American, has roiled U.S. Marines in Western Iraq for more than a month. Yet the mainstream media has largely ignored the controversy – until that is, a lengthy article in yesterday's New York Times, “4,000 U.S. Deaths and Just a Handful of Public Images.” While it strove to be circumspect about the issues at play, the Times failed to answer an important question: Who is Zoriah Miller?

The answer explains much about why America's military leaders are not interested in returning to the anything-goes days of media coverage that existed during the Vietnam War. And it explains why Marine commanders in Iraq do not relish the idea of Miller ever again accompanying American troops anywhere in the world.

Miller, a freelancer who uses his first name professionally, had been in Iraq nearly one year when he was expelled. He ran afoul of Marine commanders because of two photos of three dead Marines he published on his website. Initially, Marine commanders ordered Miller to remove the photos. He invited their full wrath with his response.

He refused to obey them.

Immediately, outraged commanders revoked the veteran photojournalist's media credentials. They ordered him aboard the next flight to Baghdad's Green Zone, saying he no longer was welcome in Marine-controlled Western Iraq. In a letter to Miller expelling him, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly -- commander of multi-national forces in Western Iraq – wrote: "By your actions, I have lost confidence in your trustworthiness and your ability to follow the rules vital for protecting U.S. forces assigned to the Iraqi Theater of Operations."

He added, “I have reason to believe that you present a threat all all Multi National Forces-West personnel and installations." A copy of Gen. Kelly's lengthy and detailed July 3 letter, citing specific embed rules Miller allegedly violated, was provided to the American Thinker after a query was made for this story. The general said the photojournalist's detailed blog commentary and graphic photos, about the aftermath of a suicide bombing, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report of the attack; it was blamed on Al-Qaida. In his letter, Gen. Kelly said Miller's photo essay offered the terror group valuable intelligence about the effectiveness of their attack and the Marines' response time.

Miller said two armed guards accompanied him as he awaited his flight. The guards were apparently for his own protection. Presumably, some Marines were in ugly moods on learning the photojournalist had posted photos to his website of dead Marines, two veteran officers and an enlisted man.

On his website, Miller has written at length about the arbitrary treatment he says he suffered, and he's defended his conduct. Specifically, he's accused Marine commanders of censorship and ignoring established rules for embedded reporters, rules concerning what photojournalist may or may not publish. He's also portrayed himself as an idealist -- one with an anti-war message. Recently, Miller returned from Baghdad to his native Colorado, having failed to get his embed credentials reinstated while in Baghdad, where he apparently visited the U.S. Embassy. He claims to have gotten a sympathetic hearing from unnamed officials about his efforts to reinstate his credentials.

As to those two photos of three dead Marines, they're still displayed at his website: Zoriah.com. And now thanks to the Times' story, they're displayed on the paper's website. Editors, presumably, believed that publishing them was necessary to tell the story of Zoriah Miller vs. the U.S. Marines -- and to highlight Miller's claims of alleged military censorship. Yet curiously, the Times has never been the sort of paper to publish similar grisly photos of people who died in violent car wrecks or of gunshot wounds. It's a matter of good taste for the Times; and yet this same consideration is not extended to soldiers killed in Iraq.

What exactly did Miller publish? His two close-up photos show Marines whose bodies seem mutilated beyond recognition. One shows a Marine lying face up, his face disfigured. Miller, noting he was sensitive to the Marines' families, said on his blog that the soldiers were are too disfigured for even their families to recognize. And in line with embed rules, he noted, he digitally removed the Marines' name tags from the photos. He suggested the photos were “dignified” and “artistic.”

Some of Miller's Iraq photos are indeed powerful and interesting. But his photos of three dead Marines resemble the tasteless photos found at some ghoulish Internet sites. Now, the Times has stooped to the same level for the sake of its high-minded journalism.

Miller says he's baffled by the angry reaction his photos provoked among Marines. "You're a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble," he complained at Camp Fallujah, shortly after losing his media credentials. He was quoted in a July 6 article in the Ventura County Star, “Blogger kicked out of Iraq province for war photos,” written by an embedded reporter for the California daily paper, Scott Hadly.

Miller's photos of the dead Marines were part of a graphic photo essay and written account he posted describing the aftermath of a suicide bombing on June 26 in the city of Garma, near Fallujah. The bomber blew himself up at a city council meeting that included shieks and local leaders. At least 20 people died and more than 100 were injured. The Marines killed in the blast were on hand to transfer control of Anbar Provence to Iraqi military forces. The province had been hotbed for the insurgency until the Marines enforced their will on the region.

Before publishing the photos, Miller, in his defense, said he waited until the families of the Marines had been notified of their deaths. Indeed, it was out of consideration for them, he said, that he even provided ample warnings on his website about photos being displayed there of dead Marines. Yet despite his concern, he apparently had no such reservations when granting the Times permission to publish the photos.

Miller's photo essay includes a number of graphic color shots of the dead and dying. One bizarre close-up shows a human hand on the ground above a small pool of blood. The dead included Garma's mayor and a tribal chief.

As to those dead Marines, Miller didn't mention their names, and neither did the Times. They were from the Hawaii-based 3^rd Marine Division: Battalion commander Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai, 42, of Pago Pago, American Samona; Marine Capt. Philip J. Dykeman, 38, of Brockport, N.Y.; and Cpl. Marcus W. Preudhomme, 23, an administrative assistant from North Miami Beach, Fla.

The Marines died outright in the powerful blast. Miller, moments later, arrived at the gruesome scene with a group of Marines he'd been accompanying; they were from the same division as the dead Marines. One of them vomited, Miller related. Quickly, the Marines set about restoring order: securing the area, helping the wounded, and even collecting body parts. Miller went to work too: He feverishly snapped off photos. Luckily for Miller, he'd reportedly opted to go out with the Marine patrol rather than accepting an invitation to the event.

Regarding his expulsion, Miller contends he followed the military's rules for embedded media members to the letter. Photojournalists, he says, are in fact allowed to photograph and publish photos of dead servicemen under certain circumstances. In his defense, he cited specific sections of the embed rules to support his case.

Why publish grisly close-ups of dead Marines? "I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show,” Miller told the Ventura County Star. He repeated those comments in the Times' story and during recent interviews with Editor & Publisher, a magazine covering the newspaper industry.

Miller, however, had other motivations, too – though they were not mentioned by the Times and Editor & Publisher which are sympathetic to his cause. Publishing the photos, Miller explained, was justified to show “the reality of the Iraq War.” And he offered some political reasons, too: At his website, he urges visitors who are “offended by the graphic images” to “please do something to stop the political situations and foreign policy that facilitate these atrocities.” What does Miller mean by political situations and foreign policies? He did not explain. But it's clear he has a political agenda, based on other statements at his website, which the Times did not bother to cite.

Miller, for instance, talks much about himself at two Q&A interviews he gave that are posted on his website. In one he says: “I just want to change the world...and I am pretty sure I can do it.”

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.

The Wacko Journalist Narrative

BY DAVID PAULIN

Are the hard economic times facing the newspaper industry stressing newsroom denizens beyond the breaking point? While willing to entertain stories of wacko-vets, newspapers seem singularly uninterested in exploring the human cost of their own continuing economic troubles. In place of worries about soldiers allegedly returning home and committing suicide and murder in unusually high numbers, liberal papers like the New York Times and Washington Post might look at the nation's newsrooms -- their own included -- for a fascinating new narrative. You could call it the wacko journalist narrative.

No parody is intended here.

Trade magazine Editor & Publisher, considered the bible of the newspaper industry, says many newspaper staffers may be at risk for suicide as their industry faces yet another round of painful downsizing and layoffs, along with other work-related pressures.

In a story last June, E&P warned that newspaper staffers affected by the current shake-out should be "watched for suicidal tendencies" according to two health professionals, whom it quoted. Both are familiar with the newspaper business.

E&P's article and a related one in mid-June concerned the possible suicide of a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, Richard Ramirez, 44. He was reportedly concerned about impending layoffs at the McClatchy-owned paper; it's now a shadow of the powerhouse it was years ago under its previous owner, the now-defunct Knight Ridder.

Ramirez, according to E&P, had been "troubled just days before his death by personal problems," and his wife was quoted as saying he was worried about impending layoffs. He was found in his backyard with a fatal knife wound. His death was later ruled a suicide.

Putting Ramirez's death into a larger context, E&P interviewed two public health experts. Both raised concerns about the mental health of newsroom staffers in the face of another round of cost-cutting and downsizing.

"All mid-career journalists are now dealing with enormous uncertainty in the future and enormous doubts about what choices they face. This is a time when we can be looking out for each other," according to E&P's interview with Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Frank Ochberg, a Dart psychiatrist and founder of center, told E&P: "Conditions of employment are not very good right now -- and often it is more upsetting dealing with conditions of employment than vicarious trauma."

According to E&P, both men agreed that if Ramirez's death was indeed a suicide (as it was indeed ruled to have been) it "will be a reminder that anyone affected by the current news industry downsizing must be watched for suicidal tendencies."(Emphasis added.)

Part of the University of Washington's Department of Communication, the Dart Center, according to its website, "is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy." It also says it "addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism."

E&P deserves credit for covering the newsroom suicide angle. Yet E&P's left-wing editor Greg Mitchell has nevertheless demonstrated far more interest in covering the suicides and emotional problems of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Along with echoing the agenda of the loony left in his online column, he has exhorted newspaper editors to vigorously cover the suicides of American troops. On the other hand, he's urged no such pile-on in respect to covering journalists who, in increasing numbers, are themselves committing suicide.

Whether journalist suicides are in fact on the rise is hard to say, for no statistics measuring such things are available; at least nothing comparable to the extensive data the U.S. Army keeps on its soldiers -- and that it obligingly shares with the Washington Post.

Even so, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence available on journalist suicides -- and it's troubling. In June 2005, E&P referred to a spate of journalist suicides in a heart-rending story, "In Texas, the death of a reporter."

The in-depth piece (4,646 words) focused on the suicide of a well-respected and award-winning journalist at the Austin-American Statesman, 46-year-old Kevin Carmody. He specialized in investigative and environmental reporting, and, according to E&P's story, was dealing with a number of personal issues and work-related pressures.

Among other things, Carmody was taking the antidepressant Paxil and faced a court date for DUI charges two days before his death, E&P reported. And a week before his death, he brought his will to work: He had two colleagues witness and sign it, and another one notarized it.

Putting the reporter's suicide into a larger context -- that of possible a trend -- E&P writer Joe Strupp wrote:

"Does Carmody's suicide say something about the effect investigative reporting can have on those who may already have emotional problems? In the past year or so, several reporters have taken their lives following stressful assignments.

"Just last December, former San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb shot himself in the head following months of growing depression, much of it caused by his inability to return to daily newspaper reporting (he left the newspaper in the wake of criticism over a 1997 series he wrote on CIA drug connections). Others include former Iraq embed Dennis O'Brien of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, who hanged himself in February 2004, and author/journalist Iris Chang, who shot herself last fall."

It's a list, to be sure, that is hardly complete, as any Google search will reveal.

Troubled Industry

The current shake-out is nothing new. Over the past few decades, the newspaper industry has undertaken one wave of downsizing after another -- part of an effort to remain profitable amid declining readership and ad revenues. One popular downsizing tool has been "voluntary buyouts" of senior editorial staffers -- usually folks in their 60s, 50s, and even 40s, who earn the highest wages. The Washington Post is now undertaking such an effort.

At the same time, newspapers have gone on a minority-hiring binge (sometimes hiring not-so qualified people) under firm affirmative action/equal opportunity quotas. In today's politically correct newsrooms, the goal is to create the same ethnic and racial composition that exists in the local community, state, or even the nation; whichever criteria news executives feel is appropriate (or feel pressured into using). William McGowan's book Coloring the News dealt with the consequences of such multiculturalism.

Newsroom jobs are even being outsourced to India. Reuters has done that. And recently the Miami Herald was on the verge of doing it but backed down in the face of strong criticism. Interestingly, the Herald's outsourcing initiative was launched under Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal -- a man you would not expect to be overseeing such things. After all, he's the former editor of the left-wing Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Newspapers, like liberals, are suffering from high levels of cognitive dissonance these days. They love to run showcase exposes on Wal-Mart -- excoriating the retailer (wildly popular among working folks) for its allegedly cut-throat business practices. Another hate-object is the military, whose members are often portrayed as both killers and victims. Yet neither the New York Times nor Washington Post nor anyone else has ever done any comparable pieces about it own industry, focusing on the heart-rending human costs of another wave of downsizing. And make no mistake about it; there are human costs to such shake-outs: Many middle-aged staffers face a future of joblessness; part-time work; or irregular income working as freelance editors and reporters. And because journalism salaries are paltry in comparison to other fields, many have little savings to fall back on to launch new careers.

Ramirez, of the Mercury News, knew first-hand how bleak things could be. He'd been "looking for a new job for at least a year," according to E&P. 

Lack of Accountability

All in all, some news outlets do a lousy job when it comes to covering scandals within their ranks. Consider how the American-Statesman reported the death of its long-time staffer, Kevin Carmody.

A well-known reporter, Carmody had written some prominent stories -- and some controversial ones. His work had spurred much public discussion. So you'd think the American-Statesman's readers would have wanted to know what led up to his suicide - and how it occurred. His wife found him near a favorite fishing hole by Austin's popular Barton Creek -- a well-traveled public area. He was hanging from a length of rope tied to the branch of a tree.

Yet none of that ran in the newspaper where Carmody had worked; the 522-word piece about his passing focused only on what a talented reporter and wonderful guy he'd been. Indeed, E&P's article pointed out:

When the American-Statesman reported on Carmody's death, the story offered few details about how he died, stating only that his death was "being investigated as a suicide," and it has written nothing more. Although his body was found in a public location, Editor Rich Oppel contends it was not "public" enough to merit more information for readers.

Well, Oppel must know what he's doing; he's a member of the board that awards Pulitzer Prizes, after all. Still, you have to wonder: How would his paper have covered the suicide of a local solider who -- to the shock of his family and colleagues -- hung himself in a public area?

The New York Times, for its part, found very little that was fit to print following the highly public suicide of a senior staffer. Allen R. Myerson, 47, who jumped from the paper's 15^th floor at 10 a.m. on August 22, 2002. Minutes earlier, the business and financial reporter had left a suicide note on his desk.

In the next-day's Times, readers learned only that Myerson "fell from a parapet above the 15th floor." Police suspected a suicide, the paper noted.

Interestingly, a little over two years earlier, the body of reporter Agis Salpukas, 60, was found floating in the Hudson River. He'd reportedly suffered from depression -- a common thread in many suicides.

Could the two deaths be part of a trend at the Times? Well, probably not. Yet imagine if some Times' sleuth had learned that two soldiers at a military base had killed themselves within a number of months of each other? Imagine the next-day's headline: "Amid Iraq turmoil, military investigates another suicide."

Recently, satirist Iowahawk pulled together numerous news reports of journalists who had turned to crime; everything from wife beating to child molestation to murder. It's yet another possible trend that the mainstream media has yet to explore, and to quantify.

If only the Fourth Estate kept as many statistics on its personnel as the military did. Imagine the interesting trends it might dig up pertaining to suicide, crime, and other mayhem.

And who knows: Such stories might even boost circulation -- helping to ward off yet another round of downsizing, buyouts, and the outsourcing of editorial work to India.

Originally published at The American Thinker.

Author's Note: The men in the photo are, of course, two heroes of the mainstream media -- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Whether these two actually deserve their hero status, however, is another question, as is noted by Stratfor's George Friedman in his article, "The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism." That article echoes some of the points made years ago in a fine article by Edward J. Epstein, "Did the Press Uncover Watergate?" published in his book "Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism."

A Story the AP Plays Down: Released Guantanamo Inmates Return to Battlefield

By David Paulin

The alleged torture of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay prison has been a rallying cry for the anti-war and anti-American left. It’s been a career-making story for reporters, too – especially for those from the Associated Press.

By making regular visits to Guantanamo and later filing Freedom of Information (FOI) actions, AP reporters based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, dug up a shocking litany of headline-making abuses in early 2005. Two staffers from the AP's Caribbean bureau at the time, news editor Paisley Dodds and and bureau chief Michelle Faul, produced some harrowing tales of abuse at Guantanamo.

One of Faul’s articles suggested that a “wide variety of detainees” were not even terrorists. Citing information cherry-picked from hundreds of pages of official documents – obtained through FOI actions against the U.S. government – Faul wrote of hapless innocents whom crafty Pakastani tribesmen “sold” to unwitting Americans for “bounties” of $3,000 to $25,000. These allegations were unsupported -- though Faul put great stock in them.

And there were shocking tales of sordid sexual abuse of upright Muslim detainees. In an article that attracted wide attention, Dodds wrote: “Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account."

“Terror Chicks Gone Wild,” wrote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, citing Dodd’s work. Dodds' story also had a big impact on Andrew Sullivan, the conservative gay blogger and author. Tales of “fake menstrual blood” apparently put him over the edge -- turning him into “a fervent supporter of the 'rights' of terrorists,” the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto observed in telling commentary in his online column.

Interestingly, revelations of hot torture chicks were not gleaned from FOI documents. They were from a book manuscript Dodds obtained that was stamped “secret.” The classification was in effect, she explained, “pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.”

The manuscript offers “the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques,” she wrote.

How did Dodds obtain classified materials whose publication – according to a recent Justice Department ruling – could land her and other AP staffers in prison? It came from none other than the manuscript's author, former Army Sgt. Erik Saar, then 29. In her story, Dodds claimed that he “didn't provide the manuscript or approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP obtained.”

Context is everything. And these revelations must be put into the context of a Guantanamo story that the AP and other media outlets have not wanted to hype. It's that many released Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefield.

In a recent story, The Age of Australia reported:

"At least 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.

"They have been discovered mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman told The Age yesterday.

"Commander Jeffrey Gordon said the detainees had, while in custody, falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

"We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities," said Commander Gordon."

He added, "These former detainees successfully lied to U.S. officials, sometimes for over three years. Common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often, and are subsequently proven false, that we can only conclude that they are part of their terrorist training."

Of course, there’s a big story here – one that might be summed up in a headline: “Incompetent U.S. Officials Release Terrorists.”

But don’t expect the AP to write it.

There's another context, as well, that's missing here. Gruesome beheadings and unspeakable torture is being undertaken in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world on a regular basis. This is real torture. Yet no AP reporters work themselves into frenzy over such atrocities. Perhaps it would be hard to do. After all, no FOI requests can be made in places like Saudi Arabia, Libya, the Palestinian territories, and insurgent-controlled parts of Iraq.

Dodds, incidentally, went on to win at least two separate awards for her Guantanamo reporting. And she got a promotion: London bureau chief. As to Faul, she went onto head the AP’s news operations in Johannesburg, South Africa (although it's debatable as to whether that was a promotion).

Scandal pays – especially when it’s U.S. scandals that are being uncovered.