Too Much To Dream

Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut

Eric Muller is mad at Glenn Reynolds for briefly posting a photo of one of the people who fell or jumped off the World Trade Center two years plus one day ago. Here is my open letter to Mr. Muller (I was going to post this in the comments but I decided it was too long for Haloscan):

Dear Mr. Muller:

At the end of your rant, you say: "I'm arguing that a responsible journalist (of Instapundit's sort) ought to give his readers at least a measure of control over when, and under what circumstances, they see such an image." This sentence, an updated addendum to your post, has so many things wrong with it that I hardly know where to begin. Let's start here:

With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about? There's this thing in most browsers called a back button. You use the mouse thingie or use the trackball or pad thingie to put the cursor thingie over said button, and click. The bad web page will go away. You can also close the browser entirely, or you can avoid all media including the internet. That way you will never be bothered by any bad news that is not under your "control."

I'm really not understanding your position here. You are angry at someone for posting a picture of something everyone commenting on your site has already seen? (You don't mention never having seen pictures of the people falling from the towers. If you have not, then maybe your shock is understandable.) Can we say "misplaced anger"? What about focusing your anger at the proper target -- at the terrorists who made those pictures possible by causing the event so pictured, and at their many fans, supporters, and apologists?

Oh, but I see that you already have a position on that. You think that blogs, like newspapers, need an editorial board akin to that of a newspaper. And you somehow -- by some twisty thought process that I can't fathom -- think an elite group (which is what an editorial board is) deciding what goes into a paper somehow gives its readers control over the content of that paper. Right. Does that mean that I can call up the Orlando Sentinel and demand that they run whatever story I want to read? Because that would be really cool.

No really, this is ridiculous. Massive readership or not, Instapundit is a personal blog. There is no way you can demand or expect him or any other blogger to dumb down, pretty up, or safety-net any of the content of their personal blogs beyond whatever anti-pr0n rules their hosting services demand. Reynolds is not a "journalist" -- he writes opinion columns for some publications, and links to news he feels is of interest on his own website, but he is under no obligation to post or not post anything at anyone else's demand. I can only echo the sentiments of most of the other people who were so mean to poor little you, and tell you that if you really can't stand the idea that you might go to someone's website and be confronted with something that is shocking and disturbing, then you need to stop going on the internet.

You may now re-assume the fetal position. Everyone else visit Jessica's Well.

Update: even better said.

Last update I swear: here is Glenn Reynolds' post on the matter. He has links to even more articles -- some featuring The Pictures.

Posted by Andrea Harris at September 12, 2003 09:09 PM