COMM 317: Catching up on back stories ... ethics, combat photos, hidden cameras

First, an editorial cartoon on the political stunt that showed low-income advocates advising a "pimp" and a "hooker" on how to evade the law in what turned out to be a hidden-camera sting. K Street in Washington, by the way, is where a lot of the high-powered lobbyists have their offices.

A story on the Politico.com website today details a change in combat photo rules for embedded reporters with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Here's the gist of the story:

U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are retreating somewhat from an effort to ban embedded journalists from publishing photos or video of American soldiers killed in action there, according to ground rules issued Thursday.

But the new limitations on embeds – put in place after a flap between the Pentagon and the Associated Press over a photo of a wounded soldier - have elicited deep concerns from military journalists and press advocates.

The new rule, announced at U.S. headquarters at Bagram Air Base, and its rationale:

"Media will not be prohibited from viewing or filming casualties; however, casualty photographs showing recognizable face, nametag or other identifying feature or item will not be published," the new rules declare.

"This change better synchronizes [our] ground rules with those of our higher headquarters," a statement issued by the military public affairs office at Bagram said.

We visited this issue before, when the first rule was announced in response to an Associated Press story. Let's visit it again.