The Boston Globe, along with many other newspapers, published photos of military coffins in their papers today. The paper edition of the Globe also had a story, but neglected to give credit to the website that got the photos released. This story is all about he power of the internet to allow citizen jounalists to get the truth out. The Globe does a disservice to it's readers by omitting the URL of the site, The Memory Hole.
All the Globe says is:
A website published dozens of photographs... The photographs were released last week to First Amendment activist Russ Kick... After Kick posted more than 350 photographs on his website...The online site of the Globe, boston.com, doesn't have the print version of the story yet. They have a photo with a caption.
Here's part the caption:
...The photo was released to a website by the Air Force on April 14 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.Hey, how about a link back?
Here at Off On A Tangent, we posted a link to the website, The Memory Hole, yesterday at 7:54 AM.
We beat Drudge, who posted it at 11:38:18 ET. He didn't post a link back either. Drudge says, "Hundreds of photos capturing flag-draped caskets carrying dead soldiers from Iraq have hit the Internet."
That's just bad manners.
UPDATE:
The Globe responds:
Dear Steve Garfield --Thanks!
... I will plead guilty to (and apologize for) bad manners on the Globe's behalf. More important, I will ask the news desk to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Thanks for writing.
Chris Chinlund
Globe Ombud