FEMA Keeps Hurricane Victims Under Wraps

"This is about managing images and not public taste or human dignity," said the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, after the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) refused to include reporters and photographers on post-Hurricane Katrina rescue missions and asked that "no photographs of the deceased be made by the media." FEMA officials said their policy was due to limited space on rescue boats and a desire to treat hurricane victims with "the utmost respect." Some media organizations likened FEMA's move to "the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war."