Paul Beston explains how the Pentagon’s ban on media coverage of returning war dead came to pass:
Many who opposed the ban believed that it originated with George W. Bush’s administration. But its true origins lie elsewhere, with another President Bush—and with an instance of media bias so odious that it is better called propaganda.
In force since the outset of the Gulf War in 1991, the ban was triggered by an incident in the aftermath of the invasion of Panama ordered by President George H. W. Bush in December 1989. According to the New York Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller:
In 1989, the television networks showed split-screen images of Mr. Bush sparring and joking with reporters on one side and a military honor guard unloading coffins from a military action that he had ordered in Panama on the other.
Mr. Bush, a World War II veteran, was caught unaware and subsequently asked the networks to warn the White House when they planned to use split screens. The networks declined.
At the next opportunity, in February 1991 during the Persian Gulf war, the Pentagon banned photos of returning coffins.
Writing in the American Journalism Review, Jamie McIntyre, a former CNN senior Pentagon correspondent, makes clear that the president was unaware that while he was conducting his press conference, “the first casualties of the assault were arriving at Dover, and several television networks (ABC, CBS and CNN) had switched to a split-screen image, juxtaposing the jocular president against the grim reality of the invasion he ordered.” McIntyre then writes ruefully: “It was the beginning of the end not just of live coverage, but of any photography or media coverage of war dead returning to the United States.”
It’s hard to think of any White House that wouldn’t have responded defensively to the media’s manipulation of such solemn images. But writing all these years later, neither Bumiller nor McIntyre finds it worth noting that three networks blatantly attempted to humiliate the president of the United States in creating such a toxic juxtaposition. From their perspective, what drove the ban was President Bush’s “embarrassment,” not the media’s naked attempt to defame a political leader.
(Via LGF.)
Nothing much has changed. The very reason that liberals opposed the ban was they wanted to using returning war dead in propaganda against President Bush. But, with President Obama now in office, it seems unlikely that the media will make much use of the policy change.
Internet Scofflaw 
My heart goes out to the next of kin who must decide whether or not they want media attention when their loved one comes home. I hope you’ll visit the latest post on my blog,where I discuss how it was during 1947-1949, when my father (then an army brigadier general)was in charge of the disposition of more than 145,000 war dead of the European Theater. At that time, the next of kin were given the option of having their deceased loved one returned home or reinterred in one of the 10 permanent American cemeteries in Europe. (You can also visit my website at http://www.cypresspublishingsaratoga.com for additional information sbout this subject.)