NY Times to apoligize to family of Texan killed in Iraq

Houston Chronicle:

The New York Times will express regret for hurting the feelings of the family of a Texas soldier after publishing a photograph and a video showing him as he lay dying in Baghdad.

The letter is part of an agreement reached Wednesday between the Army and the Times to resolve a controversy about the use of images of Staff Sgt. Hector Leija without his consent.

"The New York Times agreed to write a letter to Sgt. Leija's family explaining the process we go through to notify families and why we run the articles and photographs we do, and expressing regret that the family suffered distress," said a statement from the newspaper.

The decision came after a telephone discussion Wednesday between Times executive editor Bill Keller in New York, and Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.

The images showed Leija after he was struck in the head by a single bullet during a patrol Jan. 24 in Baghdad.

An article about Leija and others on patrol, and a photograph of him on a stretcher hours before he died, was printed in the New York Times on Monday. Video of Leija before and after he was shot was posted on paper's Web site later in the day. It was still available for viewing on the Times' Web site Wednesday night.

Army commanders in Baghdad maintained that the Times violated a signed agreement, as a condition for being embedded with Leija's unit, not to publish images of any wounded soldier without the service member's consent. As a result, Times reporter Damien Cave and a contract photographer for the newspaper, Robert Nickelberg, were banned at least temporarily from embedding with U.S. units.

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The newspaper maintained Wednesday that it had done all it could to spare the family pain while living up to its obligation to portray the realities of war.

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I don't believe the paper when it says that. It was using the soldier's death as a prop for its anti war message that it conveys on its editorial pages and in many of its news stories. This is a paper that censured one of its reporters for saying in another forum that he hoped the surge would be successful. Imagine that. At the same time they claim they do not want to take sides on whether we win in Iraq, they convey images designed to lessen support for the war. Their conduct in this matter has been despicable. They clearly violated their agreement with the Army for the embed and they did it to push their agenda of wanting to lose the war.