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Does Showing a Horrific Video Serve a Legitimate Journalistic Purpose?
HughPickens.com writes: Erik Wemple writes at the Washington Post that Fox News recently took the controversial step of posting a horrific 22-minute video online that shows Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death. Fox warned internet users that the presentation features "extremely graphic video." "After careful consideration, we decided that giving readers of FoxNews.com the option to see for themselves the barbarity of ISIS outweighed legitimate concerns about the graphic nature of the video," said Fox executive John Moody. "Online users can choose to view or not view this disturbing content."
But Fox's decision drew condemnation from some terrorism experts. "[Fox News] are literally — literally — working for al-Qaida and ISIS's media arm," said Malcolm Nance. "They might as well start sending them royalty checks." YouTube removed a link to the video a few hours after it was posted, and a spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that if anyone posted the video to the social networking site it would be taken down. CNN explained that it wouldn't surface any of the disturbing images because they were gruesome and constituted propaganda that the network didn't want to distribute. "Does posting this video advance the aims of this terror group or hinder its progress by laying bare its depravity?" writes Wemple. "Islamic State leaders may indeed delight in the distribution of the video — which could be helpful in converting extremists to its cause — but they may be mis-calibrating its impact. If the terrorists expected to intimidate the world with their display of barbarity, they may be disappointed with the reaction of Jordan, which is vowing 'strong, earth-shaking and decisive' retaliation."
But Fox's decision drew condemnation from some terrorism experts. "[Fox News] are literally — literally — working for al-Qaida and ISIS's media arm," said Malcolm Nance. "They might as well start sending them royalty checks." YouTube removed a link to the video a few hours after it was posted, and a spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that if anyone posted the video to the social networking site it would be taken down. CNN explained that it wouldn't surface any of the disturbing images because they were gruesome and constituted propaganda that the network didn't want to distribute. "Does posting this video advance the aims of this terror group or hinder its progress by laying bare its depravity?" writes Wemple. "Islamic State leaders may indeed delight in the distribution of the video — which could be helpful in converting extremists to its cause — but they may be mis-calibrating its impact. If the terrorists expected to intimidate the world with their display of barbarity, they may be disappointed with the reaction of Jordan, which is vowing 'strong, earth-shaking and decisive' retaliation."
No.
We all know what happened. It was adequately described. Fox New just panders to the warmongers among us and is trying to rile them up.
Corporate restrictions apply.
To me, Fox got it right this time. They put the video up, with big graphic disclaimers of how barbaric it is. Nobody was ever forced to click on it, you don't have to watch it if you don't want to. Even more so, it seems rather unlikely that anyone who was considering aligning themselves with ISIS would go to Fox for information and become persuaded to join ISIS after watching this video there. ISIS is certainly tech-savvy enough to be able to distribute this through other channels to get to the people they want to get it in front of.
That said, Fox posted this likely for no reason other than to draw eyes - and with them, hopefully money - to their website. So much like Ron Paul, Fox News is most often wrong but on rare occasions right for the wrong reasons.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
because it brings in viewers which brings in advertisers which brings in revenue ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^^H NO CARRIER
...that if a right-leaning group committed "atrocities" anywhere (perceived or otherwise), MSNBC, Salon, Mother Jones and their ilk would have it on front page infinite loop 24 x7. Our society needs to quit playing partisan games and starting calling out evil, regardless of who the perpetrators are.
Even better. Faux "News" claimed it was to educate the viewer about ISI(L/S), but did not put a translation of the 20ish minutes of ranting before the murder.
No matter how vile and criminal the content it still has the right to be seen.
The industrial military complex needs bad guys so we create them, arm them, and then they do bad things and we get shown those bad things so we support punishing those bad people, who we created and armed and abused and punished. Without our complacency and acceptance of this, it would not happen. American Sniper is another example of glorifying killers of bad people. Who are these bad people, why are they bad, what circumstances could we create that could make them friendly, would that be profitable to our corporate overlords?
Showing these murders serves as a gut punch to the free world. It enables us to have a visceral reaction to this brutality, forcing us to acknowledge and deal with the fact that there are people in this world who are willing to use any means to achieve their end attempt to force their beliefs on others through fear and control them through the same. Unfortunately, I don't think enough it makes the evening news or online news feeds. Like the press coverage of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, somehow the modern press has developed its own misguided ethos over what the American public should or shouldn't see. Should there be a sufficient warning so that children or those who don't want to see it can choose not to? Yes. But, that's all that's needed. Fair warning.
Ultimately, it's not the press's responsibility to censor violent video. It's their responsibility to show it. It's their responsibility to objectively report the news.
There are those who will argue that Fox was doing ISIS's PR work for them. That's bunk. Has not showing the carnage that Boko Haram has inflicted on the people of Nigeria stopped them for doing it? In fact, when terrorists killed a handful of people in Paris, it was plastered all over the news for weeks. We all saw the wounded police officer shot in the head. Yet, long before that, tens of thousands of people were murdered, entire towns leveled and atrocities beyond even that were committed by Boko Haram -- yet that has received and still receives a tiny portion of the news coverage that the Paris attacks had. That's the greatest disservice of all by the press.
I wonder who had their ads surrounding the video on FOX....
I think that all videos and events should be presented without editing or commentary.
I would prefer to mike my mind up instead of having others decide "what I need to know" .
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
And that's pretty much it in a nutshell right there.
I know non-Americans or Americans belonging to families who have recently immigrated to the United States do not understand American principles, but our way has been to put the individual first and not use state power to block information.
England, the country we divided from, has the policy of controlling information and preventing their citizens from seeing the works of the enemy. England prevented the American colonies from freely making their own newspapers and forced newspapers to be licensed by them for that reason.
When America became free from England we disavowed that and made it a pillar of our beliefs that there shall be no censorship or control of the press.
Unfortunately there are many people even in the USA today who no longer remember or understand these principles so they call for censorship and blocking of publication of enemy works and other content they (being who?) have decided should not be revealed.
This is against the American way and against its principles.
if you don't like it don't watch.
it is poor taste to post it and it gives the bad guys what they want, but that is how free speech works. the price of free speech is that you even so often are forced to choose whether or not to hear or see something you don't like.
lose != loose
it's common practice to describe the scene and leave it to the consumer's imagination. That's how terror control works.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Maybe if we don't look at it we can pretend it doesn't exist, right?
I commend Fox on this. As a consumer of news I want the CHOICE of whether I view this or not. I do not want the news provider to choose for me. As a point of fact, I have up to this point chosen not to view the video.
I am actually not upset a Fox for this, I am upset that the New York Times are such cowards that they won't show Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
This is what Fox News' viewers want to see: the barbarity of Muslims. That's what the old white evangelical Christian Fox viewers want to see. That is there World view and it comforts them with their beliefs and at the same time, it scares them.
Really, this whole ISIS thing is way overblown but it has taken over Washington as THE issue. ISIS was never a real threat to the US of A. The Arabs, Persians, Kurds and every other people in the Middle East has been dealing with shit like this for thousands of years. We know nothing.
Never the less, the Old white people watching Fox cheer on their Republican representatives when they bring up a war in the Middle East.
The evangelicals have finally got the Crusades II that they always wanted.
As a result, they have doomed the USA to perpetual war, terrorism and financial ruin. It has always happened that way in history.
But all of this could have been avoided if the US kept their fat asses out of the Middle East to begin with but we had to have our cheap oil.
Of course the propaganda says we're fighting for justice and religious freedom or some such non-sense, but that is how you get people to send their sons and daughters over to die.
Other media organizations are afraid to post the video because "people might get the wrong idea."
Basically, they are afraid that people will start going all anti-Muslim. Well hello, most Americans should be pretty familiar now with the "all terrorists are Muslims, but not all Muslims are terrorists" idea.
Videos like this will show people exactly who is on the other side. This isn't a fake propaganda video, this is what ISIS/ISIL wants people to see. I suppose it doesn't fit into the worldview of the left-leaning media, who believe that diplomacy, talk, and hugs will cure any conflict, and that conflicts are due to misunderstandings between rational people.
It should be pretty clear that burning someone alive in a cage wasn't a misunderstanding.
When faced with this pretty brutal challenge to their worldview, the left basically says "screw it" and ignores it. It doesn't fit the narrative.
Just don't censor it. If somebody wants to put it up, let them. It is nobody else's business. Censorship is always the worst option.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I don't know if there is journalistic purpose in this. I only know what I feel about it. I've not watched it (or there other videos) and have no desire to.
I've seen people dying and badly injured before in real life as well as video. I'm not very squeamish about it, but it's unpleasant.
ISIS desperately wanted people to see this and have it burned into their memory. I have no desire to help them get something they want. The couple of stills I saw from it simply confirmed my opinion of them.
Beyond that, I have neither time nor memory neurons for either them or their "snuff" videos.
This is exactly it.
No one could bring themselves to believe the horrors that the Nazi's did UNTIL the pictures could be seen.
These things are hard to look at, but they must be seen.
The CIA probably did worse things in 2002-2003, and the U.S. government is not prosecuting.
Does hiding news from people serve a legitimate journalistic purpose?
Far from helping ISIS's message, it hurts them in most of the world. Never mind how angry it had made various Middle Easter nations (Jordan the most of course) it is the kind of thing that'll hurt their recruitment with western youths. It's much harder to glorify them as valiant freedom fighters when you see shit like this. When the killing is impersonal it is easier to write it off as just "war against the infidels" or whatever. When you see cruelty up close, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to ignore.
Yap yap yap.
Good progressive doggie.
Here's your biscuit.
Liberals want to candycoat the news, filter it, and shove it up our a**es.
Far rightwingnuts want to pretend they are overly righteous and more factual when they do almost as much editorializing as the left [not quite but in the same ballpark most of the time!]
YES. It should be available to be seen. ...and they have a lot of gruesome shi* in them. .... by shining a light on their atrocities you're doing them a DISFAVOR, it turns more people against their cause than it brings to their cause. Likewise I don't need hour long theses by rightwing reporters giving me a philosophical and psychological analysis of videos or war events .......
() we put out movies like Saw, Final Destination, snuff films etc
() Censorship of news is WRONG - NAZI WRONG - ISIS Wrong - RUSSIA WRONG - CHINA WRONG [maybe China should show those tanks running people over on the nightly news every anniversary of Tiannamen (sp?) and on whatever China's version of youtube is? ] - US of A WRONG
() Information, data & facts should not be buried away by choice of committee - so that means the liberal press can STFU about how it's propaganda and anyone who publishes it is doing ISIS a favor
Give me the data, give me the facts - give me the freedom to decide. DO NOT MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR ME
insert tab A into slot B
It serves no journalistic purpose. "legitimate concerns about the graphic nature of the video" very broadly misses the point. They don't need to show it any more than they need to show Mexican gang executions. It's lazy sensationalism meant to draw as many eyeballs as possible.
Yes there are journalistic reasons to show horrific videos. Your average person is far too insulated from the painfully ordinary horror that occurs around the world.
But that's not why Fox News showed it. Fox news is a nationalistic propaganda outlet for the American far-right and only exists to influence the public. They showed it not to inform, but to inflame. To create support for a war effort that the American far right considers beneficial. To dehumanize the enemy of the day "Look at those savage sand ni****rs. Lets go bomb the fuck out of them"
Context is everything.
Need I say more?
The concentration camps weren't designed to terrorize an enemy, and the allies waited until the war was over. Two major differences between that case and this.
In this case Fox is literally doing exactly what an extremist terrorist-etc group wants them to do.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Watching videos of the 2nd 911 plane crash into the WTC
over and over and over,
slow motion, up close
seems to have reduced people's capacity for critical thinking to this day.
Suddenly the most paranoid person in any given room was considered a national security expert.
These videos seem to perform the same way.
I refuse to watch them for the same reason I refuse to watch snuff films.
But I know people who watch them with ghoulish fascination.
Je suis Charlie as long as it is not Fox News.
As horrible as it is, this is what happens during a war.
Perhaps if more people saw the reality of war they would not be so apathetic and supportive of the warmongering puppets in the white house.
Wars rarely have anything to do with people vs. people; they have much more to do with corporations and elitists battling for control; often with a religious spin.
Unfortunately it is not the war mongers who risk their lives for their personal goals. It is the well-intentioned, good-hearted soldiers who are being used as cannon fodder to protect the elite - not the average citizen.
Dead soldiers are hidden away and not honored and remembered as they used to be in past wars - and as they should be by their government.
The ones that survive are often really, really messed up as a result and are not given proper treatment. PTSD is a BIG problem in the military.
Personally I don't want to see horrid images, but then again, I do not support this "war of terrorism", nor Bush, nor Obama nor Harper or the Greedy 20 nor the central banks.
I do support the brave soliders who put their lives in harms way for us.
We should repay them by identifying and removing the REAL terrorists - the warmongering old-boys in the White House and Parliament Buildings.
Violence is not the answer.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
With the idea to not to print mass murder's names in paper, why even print or show ISIS information?
The idea to not print murder's names was to remove the "voice" of these acts and to "prevent" others from doing it since there is no notoriety.
So why give ISIS any voice? They are not government. They want to be it seems, but today they are not.
The same question goes to Ukraine Separatist.
Yeah, yeah, no voice is propaganda and much as having a voice. It depends on who controlling it.
Normally, I don't agree with much of what the Fox News [Drama] channel does. But in the US, we are too overly protective of the populace in hiding the reality that they live in. We should allow people to see the absolute brutality of these things, IF they choose to. I don't think it should be aired on TV (nor repeated 50 times over the week) but putting it online for opt in was the right call.
This is assuming that we respect the wishes of the family of the pilot and they were ok with this posting. And I would think otherwise if this was propaganda for ISIS. In this case, I do not think it is. This was either real stupidity on someone's part and I hope he got caned/stoned to death for it. Or some conspiracy to put ISIS in horrible light (the video tape & releasing it; not the murder).
Cause this video probably does more PR harm to ISIS than all the bombs and soldiers will ever do. Up to this point, most people considered ISIS to be human. They were someone that could be negotiated with. They may have some "cause" or "ideal" that could be understood and addressed. Like Cuba, Hamas, or North Korea. People would support them on this opinion or choose not to fight or choose the level of brutality to reply with.
Now, with this video, ISIS will be viewed as cruel animals. There maybe civilized, normal ISIS men and women trying to define a stable environment (however we may disagree). But even they will be branded as animals. And the human response to rabid animals is that they need to be put down. Negotiations will be treated differently, offensive measures will change, and your support groups will be disgusted with you.
I would say this single video probably has destroyed the brand called ISIS. They may regroup under a different moniker but that's like starting from ground zero.
The video is very well produced. It must have cost a fortune to make. Multiple cameras, pristine uniforms, etc .. The CGI scene in the cage is the best. Better than Max Headroom S01E05 - "The War"
If people saw what was really going on maybe something more would be done about it. FUCK CENSORSHIP!
And, unfortunately, there are groups of people who deny that the Holocaust never happened. (I guess those 12 million people killed just "got lost walking home.") All evidence for the Holocaust is written off as inconsequential or part of a pro-Holocaust conspiracy.
I wonder if, a generation from now, we'll have terrorism deniers who will claim that there were actually no terrorist attacks in the middle east? (We already have the 9-11 deniers, so we're partway there.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I wouldn't watch this video, and I suspect the motives for Fox News here is not pure. But ultimately this is a personal moment for the man who is suddenly faced with a horrific death. These are the last moments of his life, and I believe they should belong to him. Since I didn't watch it, I don't know what it contains, but I would suspect they do not show the man at his best. If we could know his wish in the matter, I'd want to defer to that. But since we can't I'd defer to the less morally ambiguous choice which is to keep the moment as private to him as is possible.
Peace, or Not?
One could easily argue, if people want to see it then showing it has a legitimate journalistic purpose. Even if those people then decide they want to join ISIS.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Actually, if concentration camp photos were leaked during the war, maybe the Allies would have done more to liberate them quicker or disrupt them so that they couldn't kill as many people.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to agree with Fox and think that ISIS wants these videos shown so that people will fear them. I also worry that showing these videos will add fuel to the "all Muslims are evil terrorists" fire. Still, showing the video (in an opt-in capacity) could have some positive results. (Rallying people against ISIS even if they might have sympathized with the group previously.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
They won't show the videos, but they will trip over each other trying to be the first to identify a gunman every time there is some kind of mass shooting...
There is propaganda value in broadcasting such a video. This can be neutralized by setting it to Yakity Sax when it's broadcast. That way, the terrorists know they're being mocked.
Yes, it serves a legitimate journalistic purpose.
BUT that purpose is not the only factor that should go into deciding whether publishing the video in a given media or venue is a responsible thing to do.
Nick Ut's photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing a napalm attack sans clothing during the Vietnam conflict was published after careful consideration of the journalistic purposes and other factors. It won a Pulitzer prize.
The image can be found here.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is a propaganda war on both sides. The content isn't that disturbing from a hollywood film perspective, but the US probably considers it the "enemy's propaganda" and doesn't want you to see it as a result. I'd give it an R rating and be done with it. The claims of journalistic value are loaded. This has nothing to do with how horrific it is or isn't because we see this on television every day. Disturbing if its real? Sure, but its not going to make you sick to your stomach. There are many more disturbing videos on the net and in hollywood films.
The question is do you want to be free or not? To hear one side of it and be ignorant of reality or hear both sides and judge for yourself? The United States puts out propaganda every day as does the rest of the worlds governments.
China does the same thing in often subtle ways. They get OTHER countries to do there bidding even via behind the scene threats and bi-lateral trade incentives. They don't want group X to protest because it makes China look back? Ohh India curtails the protest.
The terrorists want as many people as possible to live in a non-specific paralysing fear where you are afraid to provoke the enemy rather than having a desire to take the fight to them. Self-censorship only serves their cause. The west needs to see them for the monsters that they are and admit which religion/ideology drives them. They are simply following the example of their prophet because he did similar things. If you call them non-Islamic then by extension you are calling Muhammad non-Islamic as well which is ridiculous. What the terrorists do not want is the public in the western nations getting angry and calling for a coalition to defeat ISIS like the allies defeated Nazism and fascism in WWII.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If this was my family member I'd say show it all over the place. If it forces people in the region to acknowledge that ISIS is not about Islam but is a brutal gang roaming around and killing anyone Muslin and non Muslim then the video did its job.
So why the fuck is the US not sending the same amount of troops into Iraq to get rid of ISIS as they diid to oust Saddam. The place has become are real quagmire and those people you "freed" from their dictator are now suffering under an even more brutal group.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
One of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing was being interviewed. She insisted to reporters that the name of the bomber that was still alive, Tsarnev, not be used during the interview (PTSD is the presumed reason).
I recall that because I feel I have to reiterate my answer on that here.
Whether you feel some sort of trigger from that sort of thing or not, if the information is available, it must absolutely be part of the discourse on the subject. Yes, it is rather an ugly part of history, one that, I think, most people would like to forget just as soon as they hear about it. But, despite your comfort level, that piece of information is part of history, and it's intellectually dishonest to suggest that it should be omitted from discourse on the subject.
If you don't want to see it, hear it, or think about it, that's fine. But it still happened. And suggesting its availability doesn't have a "purpose" gives the false impression that it isn't significant. Unpleasantness should not immediately be grounds for censorship.
As an added thought for this particular situation: what I fear is the beating of a war drum to a threat that I haven't been exposed to. If I am not allowed to judge for myself what brutality has happened, I fear being lulled into a false sense of having to trust politicians and journalists who inject their own biases into situations and off the cliff into skirmishes that I might have a different perspective on if given all available evidence of the subject.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
It's too bad the Allies released those photos of the concentration camps. They were literally working for the Nazis and their SS arm.
Yeah, so many do not realize that ISIS and groups like them are acting like Nazi Germany. The world went to war against Germany to fight Nazism knowing that not every German was a Nazi but something had to be done to stop them. All of the silent muslims are either secret supporters or complacent in their silence to the atrocities committed much like how the germans that refused to stand up to the nazis in germany are partially to blame for the holocaust.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Complaining about the quality of journalism on Fox news is like complaining about the quality of the officiating in professional wrestling.
To show the world as it truly is.
Are they showing ads on the page? If so then no the video shouldn't be shown. They are making a financial gain to someone murder. If it were me being murdered i wouldn't want Fox or anyone else making money/getting there jollys off of my demise. The people who will judge the murders in a trial are the only ones who need to see the brutality. That is MO on the matter
Jack of all trades,master of none
Burning people alive? Yes, it IS barbaric: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/04/burning-victims-death-still-common-practice/
Who is training them? In fact, try considering who created them.
Chickens flying everywhere...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Videos like this help keep their ignorant viewers frothing at the mouth, and voting for regressive Republican candidates.
ISIS leans further to the right
It's left-wing groups that want to dictate what is acceptable to wear (schools often banning certain clothing for example), to drink (NYC and overly-large sodas) or even what women can do with their bodies (the constant slut-shaming of sex workers).
The only way for ISIS to go more left wing would be try to impose limits of speech - gh wait, they do that too...
Since you seem to be confused on this point please read the book Liberal Fascism for a better understanding of just where historically fascism comes from.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To be fair, it also shows that the credibility of journalism has come a long way in 70 years. Back then, rumors, speculation, and opinions were given equal weight and presentation, even within a single article. We don't necessarily need pictures to believe a story today, and pictures aren't necessarily a reflection of reality anyway. It's all about the integrity of, and our trust in, the information sources we use.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It is good to see multiple posts challenging the idea of 'legitimate' news and to see the positive recognition of them. One aspect I've not seen mentioned is the idea of a 'terrorism expert'. Exactly how does anyone actually rate being considered a terrorism expert?
When someone can make accurate and specific predictions or, even better, identify high-leverage actions to change terrorist behavior, they would rate being considered experts. Otherwise, they are no better than 'futurists'.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
ISIS desperately wanted people to see this and have it burned into their memory.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Even if ISIS wants the video to be seen, to have it seen by a wider group could easily have consequences they did not think of.
But perhaps they didn't think it WOULD be seen Did you ever think that ISIS might count on the fact that only groups friendly to them would get to see the whole video, the rest of the world just getting a summary as it has with past videos? Because it doesn't mater if Fox puts up the video or not for the people supporting ISIS, they will see the whole video. It's better that the rest of the civilized world be able to see true barbarity in action, so they can take a harder line against it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is what Fox News' viewers want to see: the barbarity of Muslims.
While this may be the case, there also seems to be that pesky fact they seem to have put someone in a cage, lit them on fire, and burned them to death.
We like to think that we're free from US Government media propaganda. But vilifying your enemy-du-jour by focusing on tragic, heinous actions is pretty much the only way to drag a democracy into war.
Bonus points for actually providing the enemy with weapons in the first place:
http://scgnews.com/the-covert-...
This kind of thing has been going on for a long time... you know those WMDs we were so sure Iraq had? We knew they had them because we sold them to Iraq back when we were supporting Iraq vs. Soviet-backed Iran. It's just a fringe benefit to be able to turn your former "allies" into "enemies" a bit later by showing everyone all the bad stuff they did with your weapons.
Not judging, but it's interesting to see how the defense-industrial complex works.
Ask yourself this... How effective would such videos be if nobody saw them? If people didn't know they existed. Would they keep making them?
ISIS is slaughtering thousands of people not on video also. Burning them alive, crucifying them, stoning homosexuals to death, holding women as sex slaves...
The list goes on and on and on. Plainly without the video they would still do these things, in fact if anything the video makes them more "civil" to some degree as they try to provide external justification for the actions they take - internal murders, not so much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The concentration camp atrocity pictures were revealed pretty much as soon as they were discovered. Unfortunately, the first one was only truly found in August, 1944 - Majdanek. There was a conscious program to eradicate evidence of the camps, but the Soviet Bagration offensive caught the Germans off guard and overran the camp before it could be cleaned up. Later on, the Western Allies found camps, but only in the last three months of the war. Those films and photos were instantly available. So your first argument is entirely specious.
The purpose of the camps varied by camp, but in general the priorities were "seed fear in the population of going to one", "imprison enemies of the state and get work out of them" and "extermination of undesirables". In light of that, the big difference between the camps and this ISIS action is that ISIS is interested in foreigners, while the Germans were focused on their own population. That's not a good enough excuse to hide their atrocities.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
In Fox News' case, I doubt it was for journalistic purposes, but rather for propaganda purposes. To what end, I'm unsure, but doing so fits what I believe their agenda is.
you're not suggesting that not showing the video is hiding information? If so, you're a fuckwit.
In my opinion this video shouldn't be shown and evidence of concentration camps should be. Both are equally disgusting in terms of horrors to human life. However, I think the distinction should be that one is intentionally desired to be shown by the perpetrators and the other is not. Giving the terrorists (or nazis or any other group what they want) sends the wrong message and ENCOURAGES more atrocities. ISIS obviously wanted people to see this horror, that's why they made the video and they released it to the media. The Nazis didn't want people to know the horrors they were performing and they didn't submit the evidence for the world to brag.
And most importantly, viewing evidence of the Holocaust makes it less likely that there will be another Holocaust like incident in the future. Showing evidence of terrorist executions makes them MORE likely to execute people in increasingly horrific ways to get attention from the world. It's the same reason why you shouldn't release videos or notes of people who go on shooting sprees and then commit suicide. It is a perverse way of encouraging insane people to commit horrible things or they will be forgotten.
News agencies shouldn't have to censor any material, but they should consider the ramifications of releasing it. Fox News decided money and page views were more important than discouraging future atrocities.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
There is still a big difference. Nazis didn't take pictures of concentration camps to generate sympathy for their cause. They deliberately hid the evidence because it would hurt their cause if known to the world. ISIS is intentionally staging these executions, recording it, and sending it to the media to get attention. Fox News just gave them attention. Do you think they might do something even more horrific next to make sure it gets on the news? This video shouldn't have been released because it tells terrorists that to get their message broadcast to the world, all they have to do is commit atrocities.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Who cares what "journalists" think or do? They stopped being gatekeepers of information, and most lack sufficient experience or knowledge to have informed opinions on much of anything.
Should it be legal to distribute the video? Of course.
Whether you choose to watch it is your business. I really didn't want to see it.
If true, then fine.
If not, they're just profiteering.
A while back, Fox also showed live TV footage of a man shooting himself in the head as he was pursued by police. This is not something that reputable journalists do.
Nobody denies that the Holocaust took place, they make the argument that the numbers were inflated.
If you report that that you have a video of a news event, and you don't make it available for the public to see somehow, that's hiding information.
Fortunately, it matters less and less: the entire journalistic profession is becoming irrelevant. They used to be the people who had the time and got paid for running endlessly after news stories and information in order to redistribute it. That also gave them a lot of power as gatekeepers of information and allowed them to write the occasional editorial.
These days, people collect and distribute information themselves and the primary function of journalists has become as obsolete as horse shit collectors in NYC after the automobile. Journalists are trying to reinvent themselves as some kind of intellectuals and experts on whatever they are reporting on, but face it: a journalism degree doesn't give you much insight into complex topics like the economy, psychology, criminology, the law, or science.
This is your brain on any Religion or a Religious crusade. The internet can't cure stupid, but you can put a bright light on it briefly. All religions should be restricted to practicing only in private, a simple box building, and no advertising in public at all. Their are many sects already, you can find them if you look, please leave the rest of us alone already.
Its about you and your God anyway, so shut the fuck up already.
Searched for the link again, found it this time ... ... ...
The last time I had that sort of a chill run down my spine was in that one short shot in "The Ring" - were you see the girls face. ... That was a *long* time ago. No, I don't watch horror movies.
Summary of the videoclip: ... Very well funded indeed. Or they all "dressed up for the occasion". Probably a bit of both.
The pilot is chaged in a well built cage, as if on display for this exact purpose. It's smack in the center of a court among combat ruins. Roughly 10-20 soldiers standing around in a Mad Max aestetic setting, some further up on open floors of what looks like a half-bombed building. With very clean and neat combat gear, resembling a solid desert-spotty-camo US armed forces ripp-off.
You hear the cheasy allah sing-sang whawha pop chanting we've heard so much of lately build up as the clips soundtrack and see composited videosnippets and "news-bulletin" effects flying about. ... Don't know if that was Fox or not ... wouldn't be suprised if it was the video makers though, because:
What instantly strikes the viewer - me and anybody else I bet - is that the video is *very* well made. No shaky-cam stuff, but what appears to be corrected and composited top-quality HD footage, perhaps even 2 or 4HD. Cut together in a sort of MTV-videoclip aestetic, with extra room for the camera man to move about. A cut-up of closeups putting the victim front-and-center, to allow the viewer to get close to im and build a relation ... very smart. Think "Britains go talent" style personal engagement. The whole video is a barrage of quotes on western news/reality TV and action movie style quotes. ... These guys have done their homework and their message is for us, no two ways about it.
He's wearing clothing that pretty much resembles the orange/red clothes we see on all those Guantanamo pictures. Mmmmh, could this be a little "wave with the telegraph mast" as we say in Germany? ... I wonder. Anyway, the clothes are wet, obviously from the inflamable liquid they sprayed on him. He's pretty calm, standing in the center of the cage. Note: We're still seeing all this in a montage of shots in MTV/reality TV aestetic.
They show a shot of him praying, then a fighter in desert ski-mask (all of them have one) lighting a wooden torch and holding it to a stip of flammble. Bad guy action movie style it very much is. Intended, I bet ... After a few moments the man starts burning, waving his arms in pain, then flailing and running to and fro in the cage bumping into the bars, completely engulfed in flames. He goes down and unconscious after about 10-20 seconds. Couldn't really say exactly, it seemed like an eternity, and I sure as hell have no intention watching that again.
They give it another 10-20 seconds with a close-up to his face/head crisping in the fire - he's not feeling it anymore.
We do the same thing with dead animals on the barbeque, so if you think me putting it that way is cruel, think about your eating habbits.
They stop the fire and bury him with a wheel-loader dumping a load of debris and dirt onto the cage, crushing it, extinguishing the fire and burrying him all at once. The wheel loader is filmed with what looks like a seperate cam, shots change throughout the action. The whole procedure from start to finish looks very well rehearsed
Conclusion:
This stuff has happened throughout history. We know it.
What's new is that anybody - that includes the scariest of religious fanatics - can take a high end cam for a few bucks from a convenience store and make this sort of video of it.
My judgment is out:
These guys are serious. Not Nazi Germany serious - praise the heavens not - but like 14th century serious. Curely, fanatic and not to be reasoned with. A few more of these videos and I'd vote for two dozen
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In any "terror" campaign media is literally the conduit through which successful propagation of terror occurs.
Likewise when a loony toon expects to become famous doing something heinous medias job is to deliver.
I believe primary reason media is reluctant to show this as their effective role as a tool would become so trivially apparent as to negatively affect viewership.
The media is good at keeping people afraid and or entertained as deliberate story selection, repetition, nonstop trolling and comical hyperbole delivered with stunning lack of domain knowledge attests to every day. The whole system is fucked up with such little information content being delivered thru TV talk about "Journalistic purposes" is rather pointless in my opinion.
Willfully ignorant comment. If you don't understand how propaganda works then don't pretend that you do. ISIS themselves made this video as a recruitment tool. This video was planned and made solely for the purpose of propaganda. Therefore, disseminating it only allows ISIS propaganda to spread further.
Whereas, the photos you're referring to were not meant to be used in that manner. The Nazis weren't trying to recruit foreign fighters, nor where they trying to convince the world of the evil perpetrated by some perceived oppressive force.
There is no comparison here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"I guess those 12 million people killed..."
Wasn't it 6 million last year?
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
The U.S. would burn people on a regular basis they still do. A favourite torture method used to be using a hammer on people's joints they would break kneecaps with the hammer and then they would break the elbows then the collarbone. To finish it off they would smashed the face and the jaw in with the hammer. These "IS" terrorists or freedom fighters or soldiers did not invent burning people. For example "Yemen rebels" if they were on the U.S. side they would have been called revolutionaries. "IS" Were created by the U.S. and funded by the U.S. the same as Al Qaeda was. All these wars and all these problems are created by the U.S. government they didn't magically start up they were created by the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... No matter how many people the U.S. kill there will always be people wanting to kill U.S. people back. It is not the fact that the U.S. are criminals it's the hypocrisy of pretending that they are not. Kill the Muslims and get on with it.. But don't pretend you are innocent and the others are guilty it is always the others always.
" It's all about the integrity of, and our trust in, the information sources we use."
We're doomed.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Does it serve a journalistic purpose?
No. A textual description is all that's needed to convey what happened.
Does it serve a persuasive purpose?
Yes. It's a visceral and concrete illustration of the ruthlesness of $THING. (Where $THING can be substituted with whatever religion, racial group, ideology, or institution that serves your persuasive purpose. For Fox's audience, THING="Islam"; for an atheist it's THING="religion"; for a Shia muslim maybe it's THING="Sunnis".)
Should Fox be censored or penalized by the government?
Hell on. Fortunately, nobody's making this argument. Yay first amendment!
Did Fox help ISIS by publishing the video?
Counterterrorist Malcom Nance (the "Waterboarding is torture, period." guy) thinks so, but I'm not seeing a description of why. Perhaps it's a combination of morale boost and being able to exert fear-control over their own territory. Perhaps (as another slashdotter speculated) they want to provoke the West into military intervention in order to further galvanize the Islamic world against Western influence. On the other hand, gratuitous violence is generally a great way to undermine your own cause; it's hard to imagine the video winning them any friends.These are boy-apes, demonstrating dominance and waving their guns at the cosmos, thinking that they somehow matter.
Should Fox have self-censored themselves for the sake of civic duty?
Ah: that seems to be what the debate's really about, isn't it? Those who think Fox abandoned their civic duty long ago will be tempted to "yes". Those who think of Fox as "too liberal" will say "no". Those of us with a good selection of defense industry stocks in our portfolio will also say "no", while trying to stifle a sudden case of the giggles.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Journalistic? No. Commercial? Yes. If it brings you more eyes, show if. If it turns eyes away, don't show it. The fact that everyone is surprised that Fox viewers would be the ones turned on by a brutal Muslim murder while the more centric and left-wing viewers would be turned off blows my mind. Who do you think watches these various channels?
These things are hard to look at, but they must be seen.
I'm nitpicking, but something about this sentence compels me to do so. I think that is better phrased "These things are hard to look at, but they must be able to be seen".
Yeah, things were much better when "reality" was dictated by official proclamations of the church-state.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
watched Nightcrawler recently...
>All of the silent muslims are either secret supporters or complacent Or you know actively fighting ISIS, but don't let the truth sway your biased narrative. ISIS isn't killing westerners, they are killing Muslims. And who is on the ground fighting them, it certainly isn't the "Coalition of the Willing".
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
No one ever asks why that, with all the billions of Muslims in the World living peacefully, all we see in the US is barbarism of militants?
If we are going to judge an entire religion on the actions of a small minority, then the Muslims have as much of a reason to hate Christians and Jews.
Now, look at your parent and how he was mod'ed up to +5 - even with the implied logical fallacy.
The hatred for Muslims in our country (USA) is palpable. And the for profit propaganda and the people who watch the networks who issue it are to blame for the horrors that happened and are going to happen. Of course, in our collective disillusionment, we will all consider ourselves to be innocent victims and we'll go into a rage because do not consider ourselves to blame for anything. As Will Smith said in MIB, "There wouldn't be noth'in if you didn't start noth'in." We Americans don't understand that.
History will not look on us in a positive light.
Its one thing when a news organization decides not to show a video for editorial reasons -- its quite another when you go to the Internet and virtually all of the sources that come up with the major search engines have an edited-down version of the original video -- some of these edited-down versions include the title "FULL VIDEO" and show only the most horrific finale where the pilot is being turned into a crispy critter.
I took a look at the original by downloading its torrent (they haven't gotten around to suppressing that yet the way Hollywood suppresses downloading of their movies via torrents). The things that seem to be actually suppressed on the internet (as well as news organizations) are not the horrific scenes of the pilot burning, but rather 1) the horrific scenes of children/infants mutilated by the bombings, 2) the "testimony" of the doomed pilot describing the details of the bombing operation, and 3) the list of pilots, upon each of which ISIS has placed a 100 dinar bounty.
Seastead this.
But religious fundementalism is a right wing thing!
Not at all, religious fundamentalism applies just as well to militant leftists groups. They simply have a different idea of what gods they serve. The penalty for transgression is the same.
accept that the terms "right wing" and "left wing" aare nearly meaningless.
Yes, pretty much. As soon as you convince everyone else of that I'll stop reminding people that fascism can apply to leftist groups also, and historically mostly has. But currently there are a lot of people that do not realize this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know how "much" better that would be.
Our "reality" is dictated by propaganda-peddling controlled media outlets run by the pedophacracy.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Sorry, what?
And most importantly, viewing evidence of the Holocaust makes it less likely that there will be another Holocaust like incident in the future.
Did you learn much from that evidence? Do you not see any parallels here between what happened between 1941 and 1945? Systematic extermination of religious and ethnic minorities must not mean much to you, then.
"I guess those 12 million people killed..."
Wasn't it 6 million last year?
Well spotted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
I noticed that too. The beheading videos that I watched looked quite fake and unbelievable. Something smells fishy...
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
About 20 years ago, the local newspaper made a big deal about changes to its journalism regarding crimes. They were no longer going to include the race of people suspected or accused of crimes. The purpose of this was social engineering -- they believed that reporting racial descriptions was just reinforcing existing stereotypes, mostly about African Americans.
Around the same time, there was a string of attacks on people in parks by young men riding around in cars with baseball bats. They would find a victim, jump out of the car and beat them with bats and then drive away. A victim of one of the early attacks had a very good description of the perpetrators but the newspaper rendered it basically useless because they eliminated most of the race-indicating descriptions. As it turns out, the perpetrators were black and there were 6-7 attacks before they got caught.
I know a couple of people who are journalists and I think they do believe they have to be responsible journalists and I think some of this starts to dovetail with political ideals.
So I see the experts' point. Fox is getting what it wants and helping IS get what it wants
Obviously, first thoughts are for the victim and his family and the horror that had been brought on them by these ISIS animals. The family will be tortured for the rest of their lives by this.
As I tried to examine my emotions, my second thoughts went to the forensics:
Using astronomical data, sun angle etc., it may be quite possible to determine the longitude and latitude of the location of the crime.
The front-end loader used in the video also has extreme value: what make and model was it? Could we determine year? Where was it purchased? By whom? Can we use satellite data to pin-point it?
The clothing worn by the perpetrators may also have some value forensically.
Yes, Jordan has pounded the town where this event is believed to have occurred, but what if we croud-sourced the evidence so that, in future War Crimes trials, we can be sure to convict these barbarians.
Lastly, a comment: If I were the Prime Minister of Japan, I would form up an elite group of counter-terrorists, insert them into Syria, and have them capture and extract senior ISIS leaders to bring them to justice saying: "The Samurai are coming for you." [Yes, I know that, legally, the Samurai have been abolished in Japan but the thought of knowing that a group of 'Samurai' are coming for you would be extremely scary.]
*** Don't be dull.***
It graphically illustrates the falsity of the lefty narrative that carnage in the Middle East is all America's fault somehow. Britain and France had actual colonies there for years, yet the US is the country that gets blamed for starting jihadism. Two reasons are advanced for this:
1. After WW II, the US supported the creation of Israel, a place where Arabs and Jews have uneasily coexisted since ancient times. The first generation of jihadists saw this as an opportunity to exterminate the Jews and take all the land for themselves. They lost, and since then have kept on losing, which is America's fault because bagels and Hollywood.
2. The US, as the world's largest importer of petroleum, has forced Arab countries to accept trillions of dollars in exchange for its oil. This has resulted in women driving in some countries in the region, thereby corrupting the purity of Islamic traditions. Secret clauses in the oil company agreements require that the oil money be spent on desert ski runs and mile-tall skyscrapers built with slave labor. This is also America's fault.
It's legitimate to remind people of the enemy we are up against. Too many people think these terrorists are just disgruntled oppressed people that are otherwise good and decent. That is the furthest thing from the truth. This segment is Islam needs to be eradicated. The rest of Islam lives in fear of these terrorists groups.
"I refuse to watch them for the same reason I refuse to watch snuff films."
Because they are illegal?
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Once again, Godwin's Law is proven.
Seriously though, you're making the wrong comparison. From descriptions I've read, the ISIS video contains quite a lengthy rant before the murder takes place. A more apropos question would be whether the Allies should have aired Hitler's speeches to the masses during the war.
Is the purpose of journalism to control the population, or to inform the population?
If it's to control the population, then these discussions are reasonable. If we share the message, how will the population react... will they be sympathetic, will they be fearful, will they be angry?
But, if the purpose of journalism is to inform the population, then, showing us things that might make us sympathetic are just as important as things that might make us angry.
I see no larger merit in journalism if it doesn't exist to provide us agency.
Journalism exists for more than one purpose, just like journalists do.
One of them is to get paid, which is why you get a lot of the fearmongering we get and why you have for centuries--newspapers want to sell copies/clicks/relevance.
Another is to control, which is why propaganda is a major part of every good military campaign today. Napoleon was a great general not because he won every battle but because he bought all the newspapers.
One is to create discussion in a community of people interested in the same things, albeit with slightly diverse views. This is why the Wall Street Journal tends Republican and the New York Times tends Democrat.
One is to inform. This is generally on the bottom of the list but is the most important function in some ways. Snowden is an example of this. Some reports into local projects and the like are examples of this. This is frequently subordinated to the services of the above priorities. And there are lots of things they don't really inform about. Sharing the video would *probably* fall on the inform side of the equation, because the truth is people don't want to watch it because they're uncomfortable with it, and hiding people from it is done to make *people* more comfortable, not to make it a less effective propaganda tool. It's a dumb propaganda tool in terms of a military campaign--the only people it helps with are the ones who it might convince to pay ransom. And the ransoms are not high enough that they will be a meaningful number for an operation of this scale; they are just something one subordinate can sell to his superior as "look what a good job I'm doing!"
Let's just put a price on that asshole's head and be done with it.
The world went to war against Germany to fight Nazism
No. The world tolerated the Nazis. We went to their Olympics. We marveled their zeppelins. Their eugenics ideas were fairly debated in universities. We made business deals and traded heavily with them.
The world went to war against their imperialism, not their policies. Don't pretend we actually gave a shit about their internal affairs. If they hadn't started a war, we'd have treated them like we treated China today.
The world went to war against Germany to fight Nazism
No. The world tolerated the Nazis. We went to their Olympics. We marveled their zeppelins. Their eugenics ideas were fairly debated in universities. We made business deals and traded heavily with them.
The world went to war against their imperialism, not their policies. Don't pretend we actually gave a shit about their internal affairs. If they hadn't started a war, we'd have treated them like we treated China today.
Fine, imperialism. ISIS has taken significant portions of two countries already and has vowed to conquer more. Should that not be enough to motivate the nations to crush them?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
And, unfortunately, there are groups of people who deny that the Holocaust never happened. (I guess those 12 million people killed just "got lost walking home.") All evidence for the Holocaust is written off as inconsequential or part of a pro-Holocaust conspiracy.
I wonder if, a generation from now, we'll have terrorism deniers who will claim that there were actually no terrorist attacks in the middle east? (We already have the 9-11 deniers, so we're partway there.)
I had a discussion (over Instagram, >. ) on whether the making-available of this video was correct or incorrect, and what American response would be appropriate. I didn't understand her point of view until I realized she was 5 when 9/11 happened and didn't understand the visceral reaction to the live images of the towers being hit and falling.
Sometimes you need to see evil clearly to decide to act.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Increased rating/ad revenue. It is all about the profits.
The fact that terrorists exploit this to pass along their message - the media really does not seem to care about.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
There's a relevant article (yes, nobody would ever read another FA), written by Glenn Greenwald.
The title is "Burning Victims to Death: Still a Common Practice"
"Does posting this video advance the aims of this terror group or hinder its progress by laying bare its depravity?" writes Wemple. "Islamic State leaders may indeed delight in the distribution of the video -- which could be helpful in converting extremists to its cause..."
Well said, I'm totally with you so far.
"... -- but they may be mis-calibrating its impact. If the terrorists expected to intimidate the world with their display of barbarity, they may be disappointed with the reaction of Jordan, which is vowing 'strong, earth-shaking and decisive' retaliation."
They were not aiming to intimidate Jordan. A violent response is exactly what Islamic State wants. They want the opposition to take the gloves off. Islamic State gets its power from blood debts. They want more blood on the hands of the opposition, just like Fox wants Islamic State to engage in brutality to push more people into the fire-breathing anti-Muslim camp.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Normally in the United States the primary purpose of journalism is to enrich the publishers and advertisers. And clearly Rupert Murdoch understands our economic system, since he's bought so much of it.
However, given that we're talking about Faux News, which is headed by Roger Ailles (a man who has made several careers from shaping political outcomes through manipulation of public opinion) I think we can say that in this case controlling the population is clearly an important secondary goal.
Informing the public? That was never more than a side-effect... the old US laws governing journalism were designed to enable and enhance that side-effect, but we threw all that sort of philosophy out the window in the 90s... in order to benefit Aussie Rupert Murdoch!
When a major world power does a systematic genocide while trying to take over the globe it will have a parallel. Currently it's just a big group of thugs in an area of the world without a stable government. This would be better compared to pirates earlier in our history which the US handled very poorly. Religion may have something to do with it, but ISIS isn't killing people from Jordan over religion. Certainly not a major religious difference, maybe over sects.
There is still a difference in whether or not the perpetrators wants the public to know about their actions. The Nazis surely didn't.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Wait, Fox News is a comedy channel right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
no.
It's terrible. It's bait for clicks at the cost of decency.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Correct me if I am wrong, but Fox hasn't shown the killing videos of any of the American captives to this point. When the victim is Jordanian, it saw it fit to post the gruesome killing for all to gawk at. If that gentleman had been your brother or father, I would doubt many would want his last moments available to all to watch and commented on for their own purposes. If it is OK to post the death of a Middle-Eastern victim, why not post the beheadings of fellow Americans?
Well, I would like to see the video, because all of the other videos from ISIS I've seen were obviously horrible fakes. The photos I saw that were taken from this 'burning alive' video also looked staged and potentially faked. I have seen enough gore that I don't care. I don't like it, but I would rather have the opportunity to see for myself if this one is actually, also, faked.
Fox News never showed the 60,000+ Iraqis we incinerated, shot, and crushed to death. Nor the burnt and mangled children and adults who survived our attacks. Or the prison camps, mostly holding people who we felt like might be a problem - and who are probably still in the camps. If you wanted to cover such things, you could go to hell, as far as the military was concerned. People died finding truth while Fox's old draft avoiding men and MILFy women pseudonewspeople in tight skirts sat in air-conditioned studios and made. Shit. Up.
They published a terrorist recruitment video on their website. In my books that makes them part of the terrorist group.
IMO the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Without a doubt we are spreading terror for them but...
The public needs to be informed.
The horrific nature of the act, the helplessness of the victim and the cowardice of the perpetrators enrages people to the point of complete intolerance for such acts as well as a desire to take action and also instills a deep sense of resolve. The day will come when acts such as the burning of the Jordanian pilot happen in modern industrialized nation and the perpetrators will never make it to prison, nor to court, nor even to their safe houses. Common, everyday citizens will instinctively slaughter the terrorists as a result of everyone's natural instinct to preserve one's self.
Not saying it's right but it is a prediction.
; )
Sung to the tune of Bee Gees Staying Alive 1977
Well, you can tell by the way I used to fly,
I'm a pilot on the ground waiting to die,
Explosions loud ringing out, I've been kicked around
Since I was born
And now it's all right, it's OK
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother
You're burnin'' alive, burnin' alive
Feel the bones breakin' and everybody shakin'
And we're burnin'' alive, burnin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, burnin' alive, burnin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, burnin' alive
Yes.
Your imagination will never do justice to facts and, if you can handle the it, the truth only makes you better informed. If you can't handle reality, learn not to click play, but don't make that decision for anyone but yourself, and maybe your kids - until they eventually tell you to butt out of their lives.
Does hiding news from people serve a legitimate journalistic purpose?
No but it serves political purposes. That's why it's illegal to show returning body bags and coffins. That's why the mainstream media refuses to show pictures of dead Iraqi women and children. I can't applaud the journalistic integrity of showing this video if they won't fight for the right to show videos and pictures that expose the whole truth.
ISIS is not justifiable, but that doesn't make it OK that the US media works as the propaganda machine of the US military.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Any non-insane person who saw the video or the still photos
taken from the video will conclude that ISIS are monsters who deserve
no sympathy, no compassion, and no mercy.
In other words, pretty much the entire civilized world is the enemy of ISIS now.
That is not a victory for ISIS unless their intent was to die as quickly
as possible at the hands of their enemies.
News "PROGRAMS" are either acting ignorant or are flat out ignorant.
I am reading "The Onion" as a news sources, because - let's be honest. It's more straight up and believable than the 'news' portrayed on the likes of cnn.com, bbc.com, foixnews.com and so on. Heck, I have even gone so far to change my 'hosts' file to point these news sites to 127.0.0.1, with an nginx server set up and a blank page coming up for these sites (as well as a slew of ad based sites, it's an easy way to ban 'em and speed up web sites).
In any case. As news 'programs', I have the distinct feeling that they do not understand reality is shaped by ideas, ideas which those embracing the ideas - as an individual or a collective - can - and in the case of this garbage - are rejecting.
The fact of the matter is - what these news sites are doing is providing these people free publicity. Whether or not you ascribe to the belief that there are multiple universes out there, as I do, and these glimpses of 'the world out there' is nothing more than a single slice of what's out there, the fact of the matter is - it's both irresponsible - and downright ignorant to think that this stuff needs to be promoted.
Now I also have to ask - WHERE is the real journalism? Every news story sounds like it's written by the same author. Every news story publicizes the same things. You cross reference site to site and it's the same stories. Over and over again.
This ain't news. It doesn't even remotely resemble it.
This is a feeble attempt to indoctrinate - to program the public - and nothing more.
"And, unfortunately, there are groups of people who deny that the Holocaust never happened"
Show me proof that it did.
"(I guess those 12 million people killed just "got lost walking home.")"
12 million people? I thought WW2 killed 50 million people.
"All evidence for the Holocaust is written off as inconsequential or part of a pro-Holocaust conspiracy."
What evidence?
" wonder if, a generation from now, we'll have terrorism deniers who will claim that there were actually no terrorist attacks in the middle east? (We already have the 9-11 deniers, so we're partway there.)"
9/11 was a U.S. government operation....just like all these "terrorist" attacks that have also occurred recently. Unfortunately, you'te too stupid to realize it.
The estimates of the number of Jews killed typically range in the millions, with six million being the most frequently cited number. However, there were other "undesirables" mass-murdered, as well. I just presumed he must have included them in the 12 million figure.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
"What instantly strikes the viewer - me and anybody else I bet - is that the video is *very* well made. "
Yep....that's Hollywood for you.
"What's new is that anybody - that includes the scariest of religious fanatics - can take a high end cam for a few bucks from a convenience store and make this sort of video of it."
No, what's new is that the average American has been dumbed down enough to think "the scariest of religious fanatics took a high end cam for a few bucks from a convenience store" and made a Hollywood quality production from it.
The CIA owns ISIS, FYI.
"My side in the WWII didn't invade France."
Yeah you did, asshole. Your side punished Germany after WW1 so harshly that it lead directly to Adolf Hitler, and therefore directly to WW2.
"My side in WWII didn't bomb Pearl Harbor."
Sure you did, prick. Your favorite fucktoy FDR purposely pissed off Japan and snubbed their diplomats' strong desire to make peace, thus forcing their hand. FDR knew when the Japs would attack and where, and he purposely waited until after the attack to send warning to Pearl Harbor. That's right, those sailors' blood is on his murdering hands.
"My side in WWII didn't start the indiscriminate bombing campaigns by trying to knock London and other major cities to the ground with aerial bombing campaigns."
Who declared war on who first? The international banking cartel in London declared war on Germany, in WW1, after WW1, before WW2, and during WW2. Hitler tried to make peace with the UK, but was rejected, because the UK was already planning war on him.
"My side in WWII didn't slaughters tens of thousands of Chinese."
Your buddy Eisenhower purposely starved tens of thousands of captured German prisoners of war to death after the war was over, shit-for-brains. Your ally the Soviet Union killed millions. Your hands are just as bloody as anyone's, asshat.
"My side in WWII didn't exterminate six million Jews."
Six million Jews? Fuck you, and fuck your mythical Jews. Over 50 million people died on WW2, because of the actions and beliefs of dumb fucks such as yourself.
"Yes,. the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo were horrible, but if the purpose was demoralization of failing military powers to bring the two theaters to a faster conclusion, then so be it."
We are standing on the verge of World War 3. This is a war that the USA is starting, and it's a war the USA will lose badly. During this war, I hope you and your family slowly burn to death in a fire.
"I will remind you that in Japan, at least, it took not one, but two atom bombs to force the Japanese Cabinet to finally surrender."
You're a dumb, uneducated slave. Japan was already making overtures to surrender before the first bomb was dropped. The bombs were dropped a warning to Russia....and you, personally, are a fucking piece of shit for apologizing for that particular MASS MURDER event.
Hey Frenchie! You should literally go kill that ESL professor because he can't teach English worth a fuck. Learn 2 Capitalize n00b! When you're done, you can literally kill yourself.
OMG. Someone dying in a war is not murder- especially in a war that we didn't start. Words have meanings for a reason.
One minute is journalism. Twenty-two minutes is not.
Telling/showing people what is actually happening in as much detail as they care to hear/see is not propaganda.
It is in fact the opposite of propaganda.
Exposing the ugly truths and showing the common person what things are really like used to be called "journalism".
You fail at metaphors. Timothy McVeigh was ONE terrorist who never mentioned a thing about killing in the name of his god. You'd be correct that calling him a Christian Terrorist is wrong. However, if Timothy McVeigh was leading a whole ARMY of terrorists, who all carried around Christian flags, shouting Christian slogans, prayers, & insults, then he most certainly would be a Christian terrorist. ISIS does those things ergo they're Muslim terrorists whether the Imams and the rest of the "regular" Muslims want to admit that or not.
I could only be so lucky getting selected for that jury but I'd endure that torture, ya know, for great justice.
Color me shocked, fuck me in the ass with a flaming broom stick, and sell my momma into slavery! Someone going by the name Muja daddy respects and adores the actions of Muslim terrorists. For those unaware, muja is short for mujahid which is Arabic for "one engaged in a jihad". This is where the terrorist army Mujahideen derives their name. He's one of THEM!
Color me shocked, fuck me in the ass with a flaming broom stick, and sell my momma into slavery! Someone going by the name Muja daddy respects and adores the actions of Muslim terrorists. For those unaware, muja is short for mujahid which is Arabic for "one engaged in a jihad". This is where the terrorist army Mujahideen derives their name. Every single one of you upmodding this guy got trolled HARD.
In suppressing this video, advocates of this policy are simply enabling terrorist's plausible deniability. "How could we be such horrible people?! You have any evidence?!" The reply should be an url, nothing else is needed or matters.
In this case it has no journalistic purpose whatsoever, because there is no actual journalism.
Now had they actually gone to the trouble to translate the rant, and various Arabic writings, there would have been a journalistic purpose.
So Faux managed to get things wrong, again.
It would be nice if we actually had a major news agency here in the US that put an effort into journalism instead of plastic heads and pundits with a personal agenda.
I can only wonder if that "journalist" will balance the scales by showing video of the horrific acts performed by the US and other nations. e.g. The years of unending torture being perpetrated in POWs.
Have a look at Obama's press conferences in the last month or so, up until this latest video. He consistently made two main points:
1. During the crusades, some Christians did violent things, so the Islamic State doesn't have anything to do with Islam. (?!?!?)
2. Intolerance, like Ferguson and ISIS, is bad.
Basically, he tried to imply that these terrorists raping kids are pretty much the same as your local PD, and that the proper response is more tolerance. He said "intolerance" a lot, rarely if ever "terrorism" or "radical Islam".
After the latest video, that position which the president tried to advance rings rather hollow, and indeed cowardly.
Did the showing of the Abu Ghraib photos serve a legitimate journalistic purpose? Couldn't we have just described what happened and been done with it? How about every time PETA or some other animal welfare group does an undercover expose on a farm or processing plant? Again, no need for photos and videos of that right? Pure propaganda. And we don't need videos or pictures of protests like Ferguson, NYC and Occupy Wallstreet, as that just furthers the protesters interests. That famous photo from the Kent State shootings? Burn every copy. Sometimes you need the images. Sometimes you need the video. Sometimes words can't do justice to a travesty and a horror. Don't want to show it because it's gruesome and you're not comfortable with it? Fine. But to questions whether video or pictures of a very news worth item serves a legitimate news purpose is ridiculous. If the video and the pictures don't serve a purpose, than the reporting doesn't either.
1. The terrorists had already released the video onto all the sites they and their users care about, therefore those eager to see it already did.
2. There has been an interestingly-biased "sensitivity" in American media; for decades we have been shown graphic images of non-Americans harmed by Americans while our mainstream media outlets refused to show American (or allied) victims of non-Americans. On the one hand, these mainstream news outlets CLAIM that if they show graphic images of American (or allied) victims, the crazy Americans might get really angry and commit "hate crimes" against innocent victims of other ethnicities and religions (There is no evidence this would happen, indeed "hate crimes" against Jews in America are FAR more prevalent than "hate crimes" against Muslims even in the aftermath of 9-11). On the other hand, these very same news outlets have apparently decided that showing America's victims will NOT cause such a backlash against Americans, even though there is PLENTY of empricial evidence that it does AND those same outlets frequently blame middle-east violence on GITMO or Abu Garaib whoe images they DID run. We are apparently not supposed to see our people as brutalized victims of evil barbarians, while we are spoon-fed the lie that every time we drop a bomb in the middle-east it MIRACULOUSLY hits a WEDDING PARTY packed with innocent civilians (something not even remotely statistically POSSIBLE).
American news viewers have seen pictures of dead/wounded Iraqis, Afghanis, Palestinians, etc but although I have asked my friends, co-workers, and relatives over the years, I am unaware of any person who has seen a photo of even a single victim of 9-11 (and NO, I am NOT a "truther" claiming there was no 9-11 or that there were no victims). We DID see people standing in the windows and ragged holes of the towers and we saw distant blurry images of people falling earthward, but NOT A SINGLE IMAGE of a corpse. Many thousands of body parts were recovered, not only in Manhattan but also in Shanksville and at the Pentagon, but no images apperently were ever broadcast. The mainstream press has been united in a form of group-censorship. It's as though the press (approx 90% of whom self-identify as Democrats) does not want the public to become angry about the barbarism of the terrorists because THAT would, in some warped way, be percieved as legitimizing Bush's wars against these people - which is something no Democrat wants. If there's a better explanation, I'd love to hear it.
In order to defeat an enemy, you must first be willing to identify him, look him in the eye, AND look clearly at his evil deeds. Had the American people never seen any images of the horrors perpetrated by the NAZIs, FDR would never have been able to rally them to defeat Hitler. Had the American people never seen any images of Pearl Harbor and the follow-on fighting, it would have been hard to motivate them to fight back. There was an entire film series made for WWII entitled "Why We Fight" which, along with newsreels showed plenty of corpses.
Personally, I'd like to see every American FORCED to watch this film even if they barf all over themselves... they need to SEE the world as it is and absorb just how evil and toxic these terrorists and their beliefs are, rather than slumping into the default American behavior of avoiding the hassles of the world beyond the borders and filling their heads with TV, Movies, and Games.
Best post on this subject! Cool it was modded up.
Why assume that the video benefits it's creators? As far as I am concerned it is just evidence, and I can't be entirely certain of what, other than murder. What assumptions have been made about the motives of the creators? Is it a deliberate and insightful act, or a well produced act of what is ultimately no different from a couple of young men videoing their axe murder of an old man? Perhaps it is the subconscious expression of a growing realisation by the terrorists that most of them face an ignoble annihilation and that their cause is lost? They escalate in a futile act of brutal revenge because they have nothing to defend any more, not even their dignity?
I assume this story on /. exists because of the "We hate Fox" mob (I don't watch Fox or care either way about them). Fox made assumptions about what the imagery would mean to those who watch it, but we are also making an assumption if we think we know what the motivations of Fox were. Are they IP logging to see who is interested with the thought in mind that criminals often like to relive their crimes? There are hundreds of logical possibilities aside from the obvious ones.
All that aside I can't see why a transcript would not be sufficient to simply report the known facts as evident in the video, that and a few stills are all the imagery that is required for me to understand what transpired.
As for the question of allowing the public to access the video, well there are worse things on YouTube already as anyone who searched for Piranha Attack knows. And that is not even considering the theoretically greater empathic impact from footage of planes full of humans crashing.
I could only be so lucky getting selected for that jury but I'd endure that torture, ya know, for great justice.
I see. Would you mind posting your name and address? It's just so the court will know where to mail the jury summons, you see.
âoeI Remember Babylonâ begins:
My name is Arthur C. Clarke, and I wish I had no connection with this whole sordid business. But as the moral â" repeat, moral â" integrity of the United States is involved, I must first establish my credentials. Only thus will you understand how, with the aide of the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey, I have unwittingly triggered an avalanche that may sweep away much of Western civilization.
Fox prides itself on being "Fair & balanced." So it should shown both sides of the conflicts on the Arabian peninsula and elsewhere in the middle east. How about showing some of the aftermath of US drone-launched hellfire missiles on wedding parties, children, and pensioners? Let's have a side-by-side comparison of killings and victims from all sides, allies and enemies. Let's see where the Jihadis learned all this barbarism from and let's see how their barbarism pales by comparison to the US' and its allies.
Or we could just call for a stop to ALL this unnecessary killing and oppresion.
These things are hard to look at, but they must be seen.
I'm nitpicking, but something about this sentence compels me to do so. I think that is better phrased "These things are hard to look at, but they must be able to be seen".
No, actually, I'm pretty sure that he meant it exactly as written. See, it seems that it is all too easy to deny something unless you actually have to look at it. Just up thread, I noticed that there is some idiot who is denying that the holocaust ever happened and insisting that 9/11 was a government operation. This, despite all the images and newsreels that came out of the concentration camps and even some survivors still being alive to tell their stories. And, 9/11 happened less than 15 years ago! Now, there will always be the occasional random nutjob who will stubbornly refuse to believe things no matter what the evidence sitting right in front of their nose is. But we shouldn't give everyone else a pass on seeing the reality of the situation just because it may be disturbing to watch. After all, what happened on 9/11 was deeply disturbing but it was important for all of us to see it so that we knew what we were up against. Turning away in horror would not have been the right response.
In probably less than 50 years first-world countries and their poorer allies will have tools far more precise and forgiving than bombs for eliminating undesirables. Imagine land-based humanoid drones that from a distance or at night look and move convincingly as people whose mission is to apprehend enemies and only maim or kill as a last resort. Imagine air-based drones the size of an eagle firing small, guided rockets with a payload only large enough to kill their target but leave anyone standing next to them unscathed. Combine the current technique of dividing drone functionality between members of small teams (target acquisition, movement, etc.), the exponential increase in intelligence-gathering current trends indicate the future holds and the rapid development of smaller, nimbler robots with semi-autonomous systems and you have the perfect recipe for the precision engagement of distant enemies. The future will bring a redefinition of the word "drone" to include nearly everything a soldier or humanitarian worker could ever be asked to do and more.
So yes, the usual human issues will still exist (territorial disputes, religious differences sparking violence, dictators and warlords seeking power, illegal trafficking of whatever, etc.), but the ability of governments to shape and/or resolve them through force will be unrecognizable with respect to the casualties received and inflicted. For example, you can't execute a robot. Even if you do it in the most horrendous way possible, film it and post it on Twitter people will just laugh their asses off. Any weapon (such as a bomb) with a blast radius of more than a few feet is going to cause collateral damage. If a drone of a foreign power killed my dad because he just happened to be in the same area as a known terrorist I would be understandably upset. I probably wouldn't start burning people alive or anything batshit crazy like that, but I empathize with the anger some of these people feel. Granted, that is but one component of the extreme violence being committed by radical groups such as ISIS, but nevertheless human nature and the desire for retribution can't be erased by statements of how precise bombs are or that infants blasted apart in their homes are unfortunate accidents. I don't know if bombs kill more terrorists than they create, but there will be a better way to deal with them and with a little time many of us will see it in stunning 8K on the news channel of our choice.
To answer TFA's question, technically "Yes" in that it informs the public of a newsworthy event, though it's trash journalism in that it emotionalizes the issue through a depiction of violence atypical of what Fox News viewers are accustomed to witnessing on the channel. I think they did it for the lulz and ratings. I don't think it was wrong or un-newsworthy, just tasteless. Things like that shouldn't be shown on a channel not widely known for showing such things due to the static nature of television. You could have had your child in the room and flipped to the channel 1 second after the video started, for god's sake. Real asshole move, Fox (disclaimer, my HTPC serves all my needs; I have no cable/satellite).
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
If you cannot see the difference between an organization or government that is using violence and fear to force their beliefs on others, and the world's attempt to stop that, then I feel sorry for you.
Yet the 2nd US war with Iraq had our media doing exactly what you are referring to. Are you going to speak out about the fabricated tales of "yellow cake" that GWB used to steer Congress into declaring war? How about the fabrications of "Mobile WMD factories"? Fabrications of terrorist training camps? These things were playing on every US media channel every day for years?
If you are not speaking out against those things then you are a hypocrite, and be full of self pity.
If you understand that the US Government and US media lied to you about the last Iraq war, what makes you believe them now about anything in the Middle East? You do realize that outside of the US and UK most media outlets print very different stories of what is happening in the Middle East.
Unlike GW Bush, I know the quote. "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."
No, I'm not pro ISIS/ISIL or what ever the fuck politicians are calling them today. I am against our foreign policies which have only succeeded in destroying the lives of millions of Americans and many more people in the Middle East.
If you can't grasp the number of Americans I provided, ask a disabled Vet and his family about it.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It's too bad the Allies released those photos of the concentration camps. They were literally working for the Nazis and their SS arm.
Excellent point. Especially compare the reaction most people have to "Nazi" vs their reaction to "Commie" or "Communist". I even see people on Slashdot joke about it. The Communists killed a lot of people too. Whether it was more or less than the Nazis is the subject of some debate, but they certainly killed millions and millions. But we have the pictures of the Nazi camps. How many pictures have you seen of corpses or sick prisoners in the Gulags? How many pictures have you seen of the corpses in the killing fields of Cambodia? The pictures of the Nazi atrocities make us want to say "never again". But communism? Too many people think we just haven't done it right yet and should keep trying.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I at least never felt frightened after 9/11. I felt empathy for those 3000 people in the towers and on the airplanes, who were so senselessly murdered. I felt a deep anger at those who would do it. And I felt a deep desire to make sure it would not happen again.
Sure, show the wanton destruction of ISIS, as well as Syria, Egypt, Israel, USA, UK, France--it is one thing to show the barbarity of the Middle Easterners, but also show our barbarity too. Only difference is we draw a bigger body count by far. It is one thing to read about our drones and bombers killing people, but it is another thing to show. If our society could see what we were doing on our foreign ventures, maybe we might start questioning the validity.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Sometimes people need to be connected to the visceral reality of what is going on. It is one thing to reference something in the paper with words... it is another to show the crackling flesh peel off a screaming human being as he burns to death.
A lot of people don't understand things if they just read about it. Just a fact. Even seeing it on the news blow by blow doesn't get everyone but it does clue most people in.
The only remainder are the idiots that need it to happen right in front of them to really grasp what is going on. And there's no way the news can practically do that.
So... yeah. I'm in favor of having whatever the news people gathered made available. By all means, put up disclaimers so people can't claim to be surprised by what they're about to see.
Those that say they were surprised... well, those are exactly the sorts of people I was talking about. They don't f'ing understand what they're reading. Suddenly when they're showed the images they are shocked to suddenly see what was obvious simply from the text. That they are shocked means they are the sort that don't understand.
A fair number of the people that do see the video but are not shocked are the last group that need it to happen in front of them.
And there is a group beyond this that needs it to happen to them to understand. Like... they can watch someone get tortured in front of them and they don't really process that it hurts unless you take the hot poker and push it through their own skin. Then suddenly "oh my god that hurts"... no shit.
So yeah. If we lived in a dictatorship then I'd say there was no point so long as the people running the society were people that could read or people saw the video. Then who cares what the public is fed so long as they do what they're told.
But in a democracy, people need to know. It isn't acceptable to be this ignorant.
In regards to ISIS... They're obviously worthy of death. But I personally am tired of the US being always tasked to do this sort of thing and then eating shit from our ingrate allies afterwards. I'm quite happy to have the regional powers deal with it themselves. Jordan etc can have a party with ISIS. The so called atrocities will be on their heads instead of ours. And to make my position clear, I don't consider it an atrocity when you kill 100,000 psychopaths any more then I consider it an atrocity to kill one. And I don't consider that an atrocity either. Someone might call me a monster or whatever for that. Meh. I reserve the right to judge my fellow man and I reserve the right to kill them when I feel it is appropriate.
That is a right human beings have had for millions of years and I really don't see what has changed to make that not so.
What makes the world civilized instead of barbaric is that there are more people willing to kill you for acting like a barbarian then acting like a civilized person. The instant the civilized are outnumbered by the barbarians, the civilized world is in trouble.
Historical solution to that issue was to build walls, motes, and get really good at killing barbarians trying to come over the walls.
Not sure if a better option has ever come up.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
=ISIS
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
I dunno you guys, I'm kind of disappointed in y'all, a bit. I've just skimmed, but no one appears to have googled this (as I have), only to find a website detailing many signs this was CGI-- http://www.thomaswictor.com/the-jordanian-pilot-was-not-burned-alive/ --and I have to admit, I subconsciously thought it was a bit too 'pretty' and staged when I saw it, too. I mean, seriously?? Even without the whole thing with the analysis of stills, you can tell he's bleeding from the nose by the end. Well, he is, and you can see the bullet hole in the forehead that made him bleed-- the bullet that was what he died from.
Honestly, this is why one should in fact watch stuff like this. Well-- not just someone, but actual people who can think and analyze and not jump to conclusions (so, not most people, here or elsewhere, apparently). I mean, hell, it's not even subtle (the bullet hole, the lack of any heat haze, the laughably badly-rendered cage bars, the entire spectacle of it). I mean, wow, it amazes me that we're all so easy to fool, and it kind of makes me wonder what else is fake in the news.
I'm just really disappointed we're all this easy to mislead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=21WqaDzztGk
WARNING - SNUFF (Like TFA but from Texas)
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Sounds like a contrived horrorshow designed to anger Americans into accepting yet another war in Iraq.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
I have a healthy respect for life and death. Watching something like that will skew a person's view to the extent they no longer see much past the death. Remember the justice lady with the scales and blindfold? This is just the opposite.
Not to mention that journalists have such shoddy reputations these days, that it's hard to call what they do anything but clickbait.
Well, there are a few niche news outlets which tries to focus on real news, but that is not what most people are following. Instead, we get whatever is going to make us buy, click or watch, and whatever is going to keep us buying, clicking or watching. You either get something very tabloid which has next to no news value, or you get something heavily politically laden which is basically a marketing machine for some political or corporate agenda - or a mixture of both.
Unfortunately, as "journalism" is gone and journalists love to sit on their high horses and play the pretend game that they are still journalists, there is noone to tell us about this trend in an honest way.
Of course, showing 22 minute videos of people burning has no journalistic value whatsoever. Probably 99.9% of people have enough imagination they know a 22-minute burning is a very bad thing, without having to actually watch it and be desensitized to watching snuff. A real journalist would leave it at mentioning the incident, and then talking about some important relevant stuff.
This is the problem with "newsotainment", the important stuff gets ignored and coverage has no proportion to the importance of the subject matter at hand. There is always the "personal angle" on anything, and whereas before you could get some relatively neutral coverage about e.g. a court case, these days it is all about how everyone in the process are "feeling", behaving and reacting. As the criminal behind some event which happens to get news coverage, you immediately become a focus of news attention, and their lawyers get lots of coverage about how the accused is "shocked", is "sad for the victims", etc. Everything is told as if there are two equal sides which sort of have 50/50 value, whereas in real life if there was a murder and there is already enough evidence that the accused fleeing from the scene with a bloody knife observed by 20 people, then why on earth do we need coverage about their perspective on the whole thing. Why? Because it is some kind of emotional porn/snuff/whatever, and in some ways similar to the burning incident though not as graphically horrible.
I wish we had real news. And in the absence of that, at least one would hope that newsotainment channels could show some self restraint.
Journalists, at least idealistically, are dedicated to the truth; regardless of how disturbing it is. ANYTIME, a journalist hides reality, he becomes a walking contradiction. It is not up to the journalist to filter content. It is up to the viewer to decide what he or she wants to consume.
By censoring the video they are encouraging the spread of the ISIS cancer. The people who would be outraged are sheltered from their true barbarity while the sick people who enjoy the content can easily access it.
If you want to filter that sort of content, you are living 100 years in the past and have not grasped the nature of that thing called "the internet". You can't filter it. Stop trying. You are arrogant to think you can try.
I did not watch whole video -I stopped where I saw the man on fire. I appreciate that someone made the decision to publish it so I could see first hand what they are about. I read many reports on how technologically advanced their video production is and how good the propaganda is and now I know they were not exaggerating.
No, for Fox News. Yes for WikiLeaks.
But I would rather be allowed to make the choice for myself regarding what I see rather than having the choice made for me by someone else. There is far too much censorship in American news.
What is "journalistic purpose?"
If it's "increase viewership" then yes.
If it's "cater to base impulse" then yes.
if it's "rationalize one's discomfiting interest by appeasing the like-minded" then yes.
If it's "that [the] supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service" then of-course-fucking-not, but you already knew that.
For example: If Kim Jong-un has food poisoning I do not need to see a video of his vomit or diarrhea to understand what is meant by "food poisoning" or "vomiting" or "explosive diarrhea." Even if I lack a robust understanding of what those entail it's sufficient for my purposes to recognize that he has food poisoning and its concomitant symptoms.
We have a fucked-up culture with a fucked-up interest in violence; this culture is driven primarily by those morally agnostic profit focused media who continue a race to the bottom. The majority of us have zero patience for it; we're just not as vocal as the knuckle draggers.
Fox "News" is a right-wing extremist propaganda outlet that never was interested in unbiased reporting. Showing that video falls exactly in line with their fundamentalist conservative view on everything. In that sense they are not even a bit better than other propaganda channels from any form of extremists. If there is a legitimate journalistic purpose? Not at all!
I read an essay once where the author said that reality of human barbarity must not be hidden because otherwise we'll live in an infantile, delusional condition. As much as I don't want to see such things, I would have to agree. Unfortunately, I don't recall the author, other than she was a relatively famous writer (I want to say Joyce Carol Oates, but I'm not certain).
First we need to establish what a Legitimate purpose is.
Journalism is a mixed tangle of bags. There are many goals
one of which is honesty and transparency. Another is greed
and avarice to sell more pages, papers and air time than the
others. Another is to inform...
A journal or diary in history has been the best and most informative
connection we have with the past. Some of the content in the
"Diary of Ann Frank" is not rated G or even PG but had it
been lost the world would have less awareness of that bit of ugly
history. "The Voyage of the Beagle" based on Darwin's journals
has changed the world. The journals of the Apostles and yes
Mohamed have changed the world. Letters and collections of
letters like "The The Born-Einstein Letters" qualify as journalism.
For those that are in denial about the methods and motives of ISIS
this might qualify as a legitimate wake up call. For those that
share the TV with a family: children, parents, grand parents... this
is wrong in a number of ways too obvious to elaborate on.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Quit paying attention to them. Form a team, agency, task force, whatever to take these people out and make sure they know who did it. Publicizing this stuff lets terrorists know that what they are doing is effective.
If not for videos and broadcasting, perhaps the events depicted would be happening in our communities, at home, for everyone to see. Who knows. But this group wants us to know that they hate us and want to kill us. So its probably good that people are at least aware of their messages. And i think such standards would apply to other graphic videos used in journalism. If the video pertains to something that affects the populace at large then it serves a purpose.
Censoring what we report on in our media is *not* the answer. Who cares if ISIS wants us to show the video or not? The aims and goals of a terrorist group should not matter a single bit to real journalists making an editorial decision about whether or not to publish the video.
This just goes to show, not Fox, not CNN, not MSNBC, not any journalism outfits in American fit the definition of real journalists. In America, we don't have a fourth estate. For shame.
Yes, so long as they also broadcast the equally horrific videos of prisoner executions in Texas.
Except for very few people, FoxNews is 100% based on lying to their viewers. Chris Wallace and one or other guy there have a shred of integrity. The rest are just pawns.
The reason they decided to post the video is to help create outrage to push Obama to put boots on the ground to combat ISIS. With the end game of giving billions to the military industrial complex. Oh, and generate more anti american hate leading to more anti american fundamentalists.
Don't get me wrong. I'm actually in favor of american boots on the ground, but strict small special forces operations chosen for maximum effect and minimum loss of life. Just Navy Seals, Recon Marines, Delta Force, specially to interdict troop movements between ISIS strongholds, cutting their lines of communications and supply, then withdraw.
I'm against any kind of semi permanent deployment of american forces to occupy Iraq or Syria towns. That should be the job of the Peshmerga and the Iraqui Army. Better give them some weapons than create more hate from an ostensive american presence there.