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.

[DAPFE8900]

HEY BRIT GUY
We are not pleased that this happened we are angry at the double standards... How do we know all the prisoners were iraqis how many were syrian or egyptian jihadis? The prison scandal is no scandal as far as i am concerned...We need to find out what these people know and if it will help us fight the Terrorist insurgants.. I am sorry brit guy but we are not happy about this. We are all sickened and disgusted... I have never seen any thing worst in my life then the video of the poor russian soldier being beheaded. I could not stop thinking about it for 3 weeks and thanks to this little story it all comes back to me..
My saying is "ITS ISLAM STUPID"

[weegee]

The spanish language news channels in America (Telemundo, et al) continued to show the people falling from the WTC long after the alphabet networks censored such images.

[OpusatFR]

"It is our troops who have surprised us - ther terrorists do what we expect."

Are you suggesting that the world is either numb or sheepishly accepting of terrorist acts as simply something that comes with the territory?

And no, I certainly don't believe that this act absolves the guilt of abuse and humiliation. That's absurd. I do believe that the media hype is way beyond what would be covered in a non-election year.

[faithincowboys]

Yeah, cause that might buck up national will-can't have that!!

[weegee]

That is why ANY abuses of individuals in the name of the fight for freedom demand attention.

Even fake photos splashed across the Daily Mirror?

The case WAS being investigated. All that the public publication of the photos did was to give propaganda to the antiAmerican troop forces (in the antiwar movement and the Islamofascist movement). Enemy of my enemy is my friend seems to come into play here.

[Wolfstar]

Without trying to start an argument, can you not see the difference between a naked guy on a leash and someone's head being cut off.

OF COURSE I see a difference. But you and others who hold a similar view miss the point entirely. Let me come at it from a different aspect: Remember just a short time ago when the Dems and their media shills were all in a tizzy because the Bush-Cheney campaign used a very brief clip of a 9/11 funeral? What did they fail to do in that case? The answer is twofold: (1) By scolding the B-C campaign, they did the work of the Kerry campaign, and (2) they buried the necessary context.

They've not only sanitized the events of 9/11, and the anthrax attacks, and Daniel Pearl's beheading, and all the other atrocities committed by the jihadist savages, they've largely buried the events. Now, 9/11 seems almost to be an unmentionable except on the anniversary, and then only in the most bland terms.

Contrast that with the veritable orgy of showing the prison pictures over and over and over, along with breathless, heated commentary, and the total lack of context. The point here is to call attention to the vast difference in scale and tone between how the media is covering the prison story vs. its near total dumbing down and sanitizing of all the jihadist savagery stories.

[Snerfling]

What scares me ...

If Brit_Guy means that you're from the UK, then wouldn't you agree that an untold number of US, UK & ANZAC troops carried this little gem around with them to remind them of who they were fighting?

NOTE: Actually, the photo shows a captured Australian Sargeant Leonard Siffleet being beheaded by Yasuno Chikao in Aitape, New Guinea on October 24, 1943; from the Australian War Memorial.

[Travis McGee]

they'll fill the time with more prison photos, bet on it.

Exactly.

[txlurker]

I just watched the video and I agree, it is the worst thing I have ever seen. The sheer brutality this poor man endured is horrifying.

[weegee]

The fact that the media will not show it absolutely proves the case that this barbarism is orders of magnitude worse than the prisoner humiliation images.

If Byrd's dragging death in Texas had been videotaped I have no doubt that some American media outlet would have aired the footage (at least on PBS).

[Gil4]

I don't think AFN showed any of them, but they just show a selection from the "alphabet networks" anyway. I missed the first 2-3 hours of the news that day because of work, so the plug was pulled on them before I got home.

[Brit_Guy]

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.

Terrorists do terrible, terrible things. That is why we are fighting them and right to do so. The news content in this is not being censored, or subject to double standards as some here claim. I am sitting in the UK and this story is headlining on all four news channels - albeit without the graphic video. The details are horror enough.

God bless this man, his family and friends. Hunt down the killers and let them feel the full weight of our most extreme justice. But don't wreak random vengance for him indiscriminatley in my name.

[Wolfstar]

The fact is, that by no showing it the effect will be much stronger in two ways.

No it wont. The event will be forgotten in a week. If we don't win this world war against the savage jihadists, soon enough the American people will be seeing their own neighbors, friends and family being slaughtered in their own streets. We MUST come to terms with the nature of our enemy. 9/11 was not "just like a movie," as I've heard far too often. Neither were all the other atrocities committed by these bloodthirsty savages who want nothing less than our annihilation or conversion.

By failing to provide context and scale to ALL the terrorism-related stories — including the prison story — the media are taking sides. In my opinion, the wrong side.

[BJungNan]

"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."

Funny, they never made this assumption when it came to showing pictures of the Iraq prison. Do these media people really expect us to believe their BS? Do they think the public is that stupid? What scum these media people are. They could not tell the truth if their lives depended on it.

[L`enn]

However - we expect terrorists to conform to the lowest standards - we expect our troops to perform to higher standards. It is our troops who have surprised us - ther terrorists do what we expect. That is why ANY abuses of individuals in the name of the fight for freedom demand attention.

Your statement, in an utopian model, is what we sould strive for. That being said, it is also why I fear for the outcome of the war on terror. We are fighting savages that play by no rules and we are hamstrung by "being better than that". Like bringing a gun to a knife fight.

[Wolfstar]

Yeah, cause that might buck up national will-can't have that!!

Exactly! You are very perceptive.

[Timeout]

Yes, within hours the networks stopped showing "the jumpers". But that wasn't what ticked me off. It was only a few days after 9/11 that they began navel-gazing and wondering if they should cut back on ALL the 9/11 footage... because it might incite American hatred toward Muslims. So we rarely see that footage of the 2nd plane or the buildings falling. How considerate of them!

As I see it, if WE do something that might anger our enemies the MediaCrats feel a duty to show the images. Yet, when the enemy does something that would incite hatred in US, they withhold the images. A double standard. A patronizing view of the "yokels" who read their papers and watch their newscasts. They're still living in a 9/10 world.

[OpusatFR]

That's interesting. It is getting short shrift here. Perhaps our outrage is due to the dichotomy between the prison photos and this "non-story" in the media.

You have no idea how the prison story has been hyped out of all proportion.

This from CNN here, ""I knew he was decapitated before. That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public," Michael Berg said."

Also from CNN front page: "A Web site linked to al Qaeda and affiliate groups showed a video Tuesday of an American being beheaded. His captors said the killing was in part retaliation for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. His captors said the U.S. refused to exchange him for prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison." That's it Rabbit....

And of course, the story ran directly opposite from Kobe Bryant the basketball star, and Florida town changes street name from Matin Luther King Blvd.

No one is suggesting that soldiers not be held responsible. They are and they will be Courts Martialed.

The media are whores.

[Major_Risktaker]

We don't need it in our living rooms, especially just to make our political point.

Face it now or face it later, were all going to face it sooner rather than later.

[theDentist]

The difference is the death. They didn't show Perle's death either. Would you prefer they fight for ratings by glorifying the grisly murder of Americans? What would Sweeps Week be like????