From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

This Memorial Day, an extended nightline called The Fallen,

will be devoted entirely to reading the names and showing the photos of the 900-plus service members

who died in Iraq and Afghanistan since last May.

The same format when it was aired last year incited sharp criticism from the Sinclair Broadcast Group,

who refused to air it on its eight ABC affiliates.

Sinclair complained that the show appeared, quote,

to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States and Iraq.

Not so this year.

In fact, Sinclair has praised Nightline for bringing the names and faces

of the dead to its viewer's attention. The Fallen is now a yearly tribute, but what of the daily

coverage of the dead and the wounded? Countless lives on both sides have been ended or reshaped by a war

well into its third year, yet we rarely, if ever, see pictures of the casualties,

especially American casualties.

Recently, Los Angeles Times reporter James Rainey surveyed six major U.S. papers and two news

magazines during a six-month period to find out how many pictures of American casualties

had run in their pages.

He found that while 559 Americans and their allies died during that period,

only one picture of a fallen American soldier ran.

One picture in eight publications over six months

...