Tale of Two Pictures: Larry Burroughs/David Turnley

Turnley’s photo was taken on the last day of the first Iraq War, while Larry Burroughs was one of the top photographers of the Vietnam War. Burroughs photograph was taken when press photographers operated in Vietnam with little restriction, while Turnley had to get verbal permission from the soldiers and hand his film over to military censors, who held onto it for days, until editors for the Detroit Free Press intervened. I have to wonder if the continued weakening of the American newspapers will give the government even more control over the exchange of information than it his exerted in the Iraq war, where are everyone is well aware, the military has made it almost impossible to publish a photograph of a slain US soldier.