Dead, And Loving It: Newspaper Sites Feature Graphic Zarqawi Images

By: E&P Staff Many top newspaper Web sites which, like their print cousins, rarely show close-up photos of dead U.S. soldiers or civilians in Iraq, made a major exception today, in highlighting graphic images of deceased terrorist leader Musab Abu al-Zarqawi.

Most leading sites featured one or more large photos of the face of the dead man, apparently killed in a U.S. air strike on Wednesday, at the top of their home pages and/or in nearby photo galleries.

Some used full head shots of the dead Zarqawi taken off a video. Others, including The New York Times, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune, featured a photo of a similar image being held aloft at a Washington briefing. Some ran a "tight" version of this, others a more pulled-back angle.

Photo galleries featured the dead shots plus images of the air strike in progress and the compound where he was staying when he died, plus photos from briefings, Iraqis celebrating, and Zarqawi from earlier in his "career," including scenes of American hostages. The Washington Post's gallery carried a WARNING that possibly "disturbing" images followed.

Some papers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle's SFgate.com, kept the graphic images within galleries, not displayed on their home pages. The Christian Science Monitor only showed a photo of Iraqis dancing in celebration.

The Los Angeles Times had no image of Zaraqawi on its home page at all, nor with its lead story on his death -- but alongside that story it did feature a dead shot with the link to the photo gallery. Still, the omission of any Zarqawi-in-death image on its home page all day was striking.

The New York Times, in contrast, had some kind of dead Zarqawi shot up all day, but switched over to a new image later in the afternoon: a staged image showing, on a table, a framed picture of Zarqawi's dead head with an American flag alongside.

The Times also carried a story on its home page that began, "As Iraqis wondered if anything about their lives would change, five young women were killed in one attack and four bombs killed up to 30."

In Iraq, publication of the photos of expired terrorists is encouraged, as a way to prove to doubters that a death has occurred. This happened earlier after the death of Saddam Hussein's two sons.