WASHINGTON, DC (February 10, 2009) – Today the National Press Photographers Association reached out to the White House and Capitol Hill and asked President Barack Obama to lift the photography ban that prevents coverage of America's war dead returning home in flag-drapped coffins at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
NPPA'S request to the President came on the same day that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered the Pentagon to review the military's ban.
Last night during his first prime-time live television news press conference President Obama answered a reporter's question about overturning the ban saying that "the process is being reviewed."
Obama told CNN's Ed Henry that the White House was in a conversation with the Department of Defense about the policy, but that he didn't want to give a definitive answer before he "understands all the implications involved."
Less than 24 hours later, Gates ordered the military review.
"I think that looking at it again makes all kinds of sense," Gates told reporters today at a Pentagon briefing. "I'm pretty open to whatever the results of this review may be."
Earlier today NPPA president Bob Carey sent letters of support to the President, to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and to Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) who has introduced "The Fallen Hero Commemoration Act" (HR 269), and called for the President to take action and lift the media ban on coverage and photography.
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