The Daily Background

Several days ago, I was contacted by the family of an American KIA named Gary Walters. They approached me with a problem. And what happened, I think- can serve as a lesson to bloggers in many types of conflicting situations to come.

Read on for the full story…

The problem was this. Several weeks ago, I had published an article (which was widely read and linked to) titled “EXCLUSIVE: Troops In Iraq Still Don’t Have Humvee Armor.” In it, I chronicled the need for adequate armor for Humvees in Iraq, and how the administration had failed to provide it for many soldiers, even after they promised to. I used the story of one American soldier, who was killed in Iraq, while driving a Humvee inadequately armored to save his life.

The article’s merits was discussed on forum boards on the net, and was linked to from several liberal blogs.

When I was contacted by Walters’ family a few weeks later, they had a simple request to make. If they politically disagreed with me, they didn’t mention it to me. That wasn’t important to them, that wasn’t it.

In publishing the story, which I had been investigating online for nearly a week beforehand, I had also published two photo galleries. One of them still is the largest photo gallery of damaged humvees online (you can still view this gallery here). In the other one, I presented photographs of the Humvee Gary Walters died in. Several of the photographs were gruesome, and included in some of the pictures were Gary’s remains.

As an article, I think it was a good example of online citizen journalism. I had managed to build a portrayal of the Humvee armor situation around a narrative (Gary Walters’ story) which I had managed to scrape together from several sorted sources online. It wasn’t the article that Walters’ family had issue with though. It was the second photo gallery I published along with it.

I had inadvertently found the set of thirteen photographs of Walters’ remains and his damaged Humvee (which the family had previously not known existed), on the internet while researching the article-to-be. They were found on a shock site (which I had not previously known existed), which I will not name or link to, because the gruesome photographs are still publicly viewable there.

Explaining where I found the photographs, I wrote in an email:

I think we would both agree that such photographs are on the same level as for instance “beheading videos” which were circulated during the early and mid stages of the war in Afghanistan. Thankfully these have become much less frequent. “War pornography” it seems is a fairly recent phenomenon which (regrettably) effects both sides of current struggles- and is not limited to “other side.” I believe it is most likely (given what little I know about their origin) that the pictures of Gary Walters seen on TheDailyBackground were in fact taken by a person who was employed in the U.S. Military (at least at the time).

The pictures can be found on their own page which can be found at [removed]. According to the website, they can be contacted at [removed]. Further, after looking around their website, I understand that the site takes submissions of gory videos and images (”What Are We Looking For? Exclusive pictures, videos and possibly sounds featuring graphic content (accident -, medical -, forensic -, suicide -, war scenes etc…)” — from [removed]). It is my guess that somebody (working for the U.S. Military) was in the area at the time, and took the pictures. It then took several months for them to apparently appear on the website (posted on November 8, 2005, according to them). There is also a short description of the photographs, which I assume was written by whoever submitted the photographs, based on that it is in quotes.

Obviously I don’t know if the person who submitted the photographs is the same person who took the photographs. Based on news reports of similar phenomena (”War pornography”), it seems possible
that this digital set of photographs may have passed through several hands before appearing on the website (why else would the original photographer not post them right after they were taken- in April?).

I remember reading in the news in early September of 2005, that there was a website offering pornography to U.S. soldiers who traded pictures of corpses in Iraq (more about that here).
Apparently the creator of the website was arrested briefly, and then let go. While a Military investigation into this began, as I understand, it was cancelled on September 28th.

When several members of the Walters family (his brother and sisters) discovered my article and the subsequent photo gallery online, they were heartsick. Gary Walters died in spring of 2005, and when they found those photographs they were forced to relive the wrenching pain they it was to find out Gary died, in a way they did not think possible; a new, graphic manner.

Once one of Gary’s sisters contacted me, I realized what had happened, and felt absolutely horrible. She comes from a family of whom several are proudly serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. To find out that photographs of Gary’s body were available for viewing online was extremely difficult to take. I can’t imagine the pain this knowledge must have given to Gary’s mother and his five children in particular, although I am told they have not seen the photographs personally.

When I originally published the photographs, I was only interested in the aspects detailing the damage to the Humvee– not the gore. I published the full set because I had them, not because I wanted people to see in graphic detail this incident that occurred in the Iraq War.

Wars are horrible, horrible things. Soldiers who enlist to protect their countries die, as do, inevitably civilians who did not choose to be caught in conflict. I, along with many, many others, believe the current war that the United States government is waging is no better than any other war. It may have been launched under glorious defensive pretenses, all of which have been forgotten now. Nearly every day, at least one family gets a “Dear ________, I regret to inform you…” letter from our leaders, and some days it is a dozen families or more who receive these. This isn’t partisan, it’s just a fact.

Attempts have even been made to stifle lists of American soldiers who have died in the service of their country in Iraq. News organizations that keep track of Iraq War Casualties have been accused of being unpatriotic, even though the names, numbers and statistics they have are supplied by the U.S. Military itself. I don’t think if I were a family member of a fallen American soldier that I would feel respected if a political faction was trying to cover up my brother’s or son’s death for instance. Why should anyone want to stop people from knowing that my family member had been fallen serving his country in a foreign land?

After mulling the issue over in my mind, and one sickening day thinking about the pain I had caused to a family which has already suffered a great deal, I respected the wishes of Walters family and removed the photograph gallery which included Walters’ remains. I exchanged a final email with Gary’s sister (in which I named the source of the photographs and wished her luck in any legal measures the family decides to take). She offered a heartfelt thanks, and told me that the military will be launching an investigation into the matter.

For bloggers and other citizen journalists, I think this story can serve as an important lesson. We often do uncover stories that print or broadcast news wouldn’t touch, or wouldn’t cover in the same way. And the internet has allowed our reports to reach greater audiences than ever have been available to us. Anyone with internet access can find our work. And people do.

When I wrote the article I wrote about Gary Walters, and the lack of effective, adequate Humvee armor available to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, I never dreamed that anyone who knew Gary– much less his family– would find what I had written, or the photographs I had included with my article.

If I had the chance to do things over again, I still would have written the article. And I would have written it just how I did write it- blasting the current government and their inability to protect our soldiers who are so obviously in harms way. I would have probably have included a photograph of the outside of Gary’s Humvee, with a jagged hole in the side.

What I would have done differently however, is I would not have published the additional photographs which included photographs of Walters remains. But that’s not the important thing.

The important thing is that I would have sent a personal note explaining the additional photographs’ existence and the place where they could be found to Walters family, along with a copy of the article I wrote. This is what I owed them. So for bloggers and citizen journalists, I say this: If you write a story, any story that personally includes a person or a group of people not in the public spotlight that they don’t know you’re writing- send them a copy of the story and any notes you took while writing the piece.

If you’re lucky, they may be thrilled that they’ve been written about, and even give you an interview and enough material for a followup piece. Or they may be angry and resent what you’ve written about them– that part doesn’t matter as much. The point is they have the right to know what’s being published about them; even if the publishing medium is just the internet.

And in cases where you’ve written an investigative piece in which you’re revealing something which not publicly known, you owe full disclosure to them twice as much as you normally would. I found that out the hard way.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog