Overnight Thread, Sad Commentary Division: How Ignorant Are Today's Journalists?

Pretty darn ignorant, to judge by this story by Ron Grossman in the Chicago Tribune:

I took a quick survey in the newsroom the other day, something between a Rorschach test and a pop quiz, asking younger colleagues to identify an iconic photograph of World War II.

While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn’t quite place it.

“I know I ought to know it,” one co-worker said. “It was in the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers.’ ” Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

Yes, those uniforms are a dead giveaway, aren’t they?

Alas, the essay wanders off into a discussion of dishtowels, the Bauhaus movement and the writer’s escape from the middle class, until it gets back to the loss of historical memory and what it portends for the future — and, according to Grossman, it’s not all bad:

A few months ago, students at a high school in Chatham, Ill., painted a mural on a school wall. These young people recognized the iconic imagery of Iwo Jima. They borrowed it but replaced Old Glory with a windmill. Saving the environment from pollution was their crusade, they explained.

Most of the 236 comments on the local newspaper’s Web site seemed divided between those who found the mural disrespectful of World War II veterans or those who believed it symbolized the freedom for which they had fought. One, though, reacted with a haunting forecast:

“One day down the road the wall will need to be repainted, and at that time some other artistic individual will paint something there, too. At that time, who knows, it could reference another historical event on another level … Each generation has its own battle.”

Over to you for comments and observations.