Media Outlets Won't Show Beheading Video (Media Hypocrisy Alert)

AP via Yahoo News ^ | 5/11/04 | By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

[Wolfstar]

NEW YORK - Video of an American civilian beheaded by an al-Qaida-affiliated group was deemed too gruesome to air by many media outlets Tuesday, including some prominent networks in the Arab world.

Several television networks, including CNN and MSNBC in the United States, showed pictures of a bound and frightened Nick Berg, with five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks standing behind him.

The video, posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site, went on to show the men cutting Berg's head off and then holding it before the camera. Berg's body was found in Baghdad on Saturday.

Many media outlets likened it to the video of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's 2002 execution. In both cases, snippets of the video with the victim still alive were widely shown, but none of the actual killing.

"The news story itself is strong enough," said Jihad Ballout, spokesman for Al-Jazeera television, an Arabic-language satellite station based in Qatar. "To show the actual beheading is out of the realm of decency."

One of Al-Jazeera's competitors, the Arab news station Al-Arabiya, showed a brief snippet without the beheading.

The ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast networks said they did not plan to show anything beyond the opening shot of Berg alive on their evening news programs.

"It's a pretty clear call for us," said Jon Banner, executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight." "I think the viewer will understand what happened to Mr. Berg. They won't have to sit through the graphic images."

Steve Capus, executive producer of NBC's "Nightly News," said it was one of the worst things he had ever seen.

"I saw it from start to finish and I wish I didn't have to," Capus said. "It's a horrifying, sadistic act of murder that is drawn out."

Peter Koeleman, director of photography at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, said it was chilling enough just to see pictures of Berg sitting before his captors.

"We always say, `What if his family member lives here?'" Koeleman said. "It's such a cruel thing they did to him. There's so much impact in seeing him helplessly sitting there, it sent shivers down my spine. I didn't need to have it in my face."

Similarly, Bob Keane, a managing editor at Newsday on New York's Long Island, said the newspaper would not show images of the beheading.

"The story is gruesome enough," Keane said. "We'll leave much of it to people's imaginations. If people are curious, they can go to the Web site."

Associated Press Television News, which provides news pictures to 500 subscribers worldwide, distributed video of the full beheading. The video was preceded by a printed warning that lasted a full minute: "Warning! Man is beheaded on camera, extremely graphic footage."

APTN is told repeatedly by subscribers to provide them with as much news material as possible, and let the individual stations decide for themselves what to air, said Sandy MacIntyre, APTN's head of news.

The material was not included in a separate news feed that some stations put directly on the air, MacIntyre said. The AP works as both a wholesaler of news to its members and also disseminates news to the public itself.

[theDentist]

They only need report that the Muslims have decapitated an American hostage in the name of retribution for their terrorist brethren being humiliated, and that they promise more.

You can take you "gullible chump" remark and shove it.

[GladesGuru]

The beheading isn't comparable to the "chain gun" effects on a combatant.

Sorry, but typical Arab brutality isn't explainable - and analogies with combat situations are sooo, ummm, the word "Democratic" comes to mind.

Too many such outbursts and people may confuse you with Corporal Cueball.

[weegee]

The media has no problem airing and releasing the Zapruder film and the other film of the JFK assassination. This is the cold hearted killing of a man.

It's not the death that keeps them from airing it.

[weegee]

Hunt down the killers and let them feel the full weight of our most extreme justice.

And what would that be? Some nations oppose the death penalty for any reason (other than to be used as birth control).

[Labyrinthos]

The the ABC affiliate in NYC refered to the decapitation as a "tragedy." I just heard it on the 11:00 p.m. news. Being leashed and made to crawl like a dog with panties on their heads is torture, but cutting off a guy's head and then holding it up like a trophy for the world to view is a mere tragedy. Un freaken believable!!!

[oceanview]

and this will be a one day story for them - except for the father's criticism of Bush. you won't even hear about this beheading tomorrow.

[oceanview]

even Univision is not showing it, and they showed the 9/11 WTC video of people jumping from the buildings.

[Labyrinthos]

I saw the video tape, and it was even worse than the Pearl tape if that is possible. The images burn into your brain just like the images of the jets accelerating through the World Trade Towers and the people jumping to their death. I watched the tape because I never want to forget the face of our enemy.

[weegee]

The cover of this week's Time Magazine is an illustration of a hooded terrorist...naked. It was styled to copy images of Christ's crucifixion.

Let's what next week's cover looks like.

Either the winner of some reality program (such as The Swan, The Apprentice, etc.) or else another "Why Do They Hate Us So?".

[jpsb]

Know I know why the good Lord had to kill each first born just to get their attention. These people are not human. They are beasts that should be slaughtered so that humans may prosper in the land that beasts now inhabit.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Thank you backhoe, for the links. I watched the video, and, although through a 56k staggered play, I have seen all I ever want or need to see.

That's it.

From now on, I have no compassion whatsoever for these demons. I desire to see every possible agent of these unspeakable animals rounded up and whatever is needed to be done to acquire information to round-up more of them - so be it. I do NOT care about the Geneva convention - does anyone in the entire F*CKING world care about the rigors of the convention when it applies to Americans?

Of course not.

The world doesn't even deserve America.

Let it be said, in absolution, that America has it faults - no question - but what we are, in terms of giving our blood and treasure, is so radically different from the rest of the free loading pigs (Europe) and hate-filled fleas (Islam) that we really are beyond the same scale of judgement.

In WWII, the Japanese sought to right the wrongs of their relatives so vehemently they fought in the Rainbow Division so honorably that they became one of the most decorated units in the war. NO SUCH EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE RESIDENT MUSLIMS SEEMS TO BE FORTHCOMING - I WONDER WHY?

From now on, I'm of the 'kill them all' crowd. F*CK Allah and his servile scum.

[John Lenin]

The American media ran with the prison story today all day long mentioning the Berg killing here and there. I'm sick to my stomack of what we have become. It's like the US media will do anything to defeat Bush, im giving up hope on this country, we have moved so far away from what we used to be so fast it can only get worse.

[My Dog Likes Me]

Although photos of the Zapruder film were published in Life Magazine after the assasination (I think Life bought the film from Zapruder), the actual moving film wasn't shown publicly until 1972 or 1973 when it was acquired and aired by the young host of a new TV "current events & culture" show (ABC?) named Geraldo Rivera, right on national TV. Created quite a stir at the time.

[Brit_Guy]

Media Watch -

Well TV wise in the UK:

BBC News (free to air) - Headline Story
Sky News - Headline Story
ITN News - Headline Story
BBC News 24 (Cable/Sattelite) - Headline Story

This is despite there having been a terrible accident in a Scottish facoty last night which left many Britains dead.

So, certainly on this side of the pond I feel the broadcast media is being fair and balanced. The print media you pay your money and you take your choice - you know each newspapers political slant so the angle they choose to cover a story is never a surprise.

[backhoe]

I agree.

[Texasforever]

My comment is aimed at those who think that things such as this mean troops should be pardoned for any abuses. That is bull. Two wrongs have never made a right.

Tell me. What if those in the pictures were being pressured to reveal this guy's location? Yes sometimes 2 "wrongs" do make a right in the hard cruel world.

[LonghornFreeper]

>>What cause is there in censoring this? That people will not be offended by the site of it? Rediculas. In record numbers they went to see the movie, Passion of The Christ, kids watch gruesome video games daily. Everyone has gone to a horror film at least once.

You in turn have missed or ignored the point of my post. Whether or not you agree with the censoring of this video, there is nothing the media can do about it. Even if you personally owned and operated CNN and had full control over what it put on the air, and you decided to put this video on in full, America would only see it for a couple of days before you lost your broadcast license and your network was taken permanently off the air. If you want to complain about censorship, complain at the FCC.

As for how to understand what the war is about without seeing the video, we were able to fight and win many wars before TV even existed, so it is ridiculous to say that if the population cannot see brutallity on TV we won't be able to understand the war. Sam Houston's men didn't need to see Santa Anna's brutality on tape to remember Goliad and the Alamo.

[LonghornFreeper]

>>Trust me when I say if we behead a terrorist. It would be on the 6 o'clock news. I bet my life on it.....

Yes, the fact that we beheaded a terrorist would be on the news, probably for weeks. The video of the actual beheading would not be shown though, unless the station showing it wanted to lose its license and be permanantly taken off the air.

[Texasforever]

Watch Braveheart the next time it is on TV. Better yet, watch the news the next time a bomb goes off in Israel like earlier today.

[alnitak]

On mine it is called

"Iraq - Berg Beheading"