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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."
i wonder what the public opinion would be if the true "horrors of war" were shown on TV?
You know, soldiers massacrating people (which is what war is, literally).
Would they still call them "boys" as in "bring our boys back home"? Will they be received as heroes?
This headline breaks the rule. The answer should be "No", but the video itself being optional to see is fine for those that want to see it. Don't auto-play it or broadcast on national television for the sake of getting better viewing rates. Just bad taste like that.
Before anyone goes off saying that if some one doesn't want to see it, they should change the channel, but you can't discount people turning to the station mid-broadcast, unless you want the network to be considered a snuff film network.
The debate in my mind is this... sure it's important to see the barbaric nature of the ISIS group, but on the opposite site, you know there are people in the world who get off seeing this kind of stuff. So the issue is one of "do we show the truth, in an effort to raise sympathy for the victim, when it will inevitably become a source of enjoyment for some, and a source of sympathy for the enemy for others.
In my mind, I think you can show enough video to prove that it really happened, such that it raises the outrage of those who's outrage Fox wishes to raise, without showing the entire 22 minutes of it. At some point, it stops being evidence of a crime, and instead becomes an orgy for masochists.
To express this another way, imagine you were called to sit on a jury where a man was accused of producing thousands of images of child porn. As a jury member, would you want to be forced to watch EVERY SINGLE image/video, or would you at some point say enough is enough, I don't need to see that to know the guy is guilty? In some cases, it is actually necessary to do so, to ensure that justice is done. But the court certainly isn't going to release all those images to the media to convince the court of public opinion that the guy is truly guilty.
Similarly, someone in the Japanese government should probably see the whole thing just to confirm that it wasn't a fake, and it really happened, but at that point, what purpose does it serve to show it in it's entirety? None really, except to gratify those who either support ISIS or get off on this kind of thing. If knowing it happened, and seeing a short clip of it isn't proof enough to stir up the national outrage to finally put a stop to it, no amount of video will.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
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?
But ISIS is sliding on a very slippery slope. They had so far managed NOT to overtly piss off the local powers enough to where the political costs of going after them have been overcome by the revulsion of the body politic (whatever it happens to be). They made a big mistake toasting a local as this brings on the internecine warfare that they have been avoiding so far. They have hard line Muslim clerics after them on purely religious grounds. That is pretty much their only claim to legitimacy. This one is going to be hard to put into back into a bottle.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And the flipside to that, particularly where ISIS is concerned, is that horrific acts like the burning of the Jordanian fighter pilot to death, easily available online or via the nightly news, might actually serve to inflame the anger of the public in many countries, serving the purpose of creating more support for the anti-ISIS campaign. That certainly seems to be what has happened in Jordan, where ISIS's actions has probably eliminated any desire on the part of the Jordanian government or its citizens to seek some sort of diplomatic compromise.
To me, al Qaeda, ISIS and the other Islamist extremists are like a hyper-virulent virus. They leave behind a horrible trail of death and misery, but they are so awful and so destructive that they essentially burn themselves out. Even Muslims who might in some ways be sympathetic to the extremists' variant of Islam will likely walk away from them because of these kinds of insanely over-the-top displays of cruelty. ISIS shouldn't be worried about shocking and pissing off Westerners, it should be worried about shocking and pissing off their co-religionists.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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
I think the apologists for the terrorists and Islamic extremists should definitely watch all the burnings, stonings, beheadings, and rapes. Apparently words aren't enough.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It also takes away the "come fight with us it's a glorious adventure" angle for recruiters, when potential recruits hear only universal condemnation, and (unless they're already beyond reach) even their gut tells them this is wrong.
Plus it's given more legitimacy to bombing the crap out of ISIS.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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.
And what is the prevailing view of the drug war in Mexico? Most Americans are far away detached, aside from a few border towns whose sheriff gets shot. Maybe if the news did show the Mexican drug cartels who behead entire towns we would do something to help. http://america.aljazeera.com/o...
The Journalistic purpose is the same reason why there were so many pictures taken of the concentration camps when the allies liberated them. Lets not be ignorant of the world we live in. The news is ment to inform us.
As it stands now, Fox gave you a choice. Many people have died so that we can have a choice. Let's not denigrate their memory by obstructing the choices we have because you feel it is "lazy sensationalism".
Seeing it on TV is probably not going to have much of an effect for the same reason that playing violent games doesn't have much of an effect. Vision is a powerful sense, but not anywhere near as powerful as the effect of hearing, smelling and feeling on top of seeing.
It's inevitable that any visual depiction is going to be different from the actual event, no matter how hard the people depicting it try to keep it accurate.
They are different, but it matters. That's why the US won't allow the media to show dead US solder's returning to the US. And that is just a picture of a coffin. A large part of the public opinion about the Vietnam war was do to the fact that the news did show the US bombing and burning villages. Footage of carnage and piles of returning body bags. The US does not allow any of that now.
And Fox News, the mouth piece of the Republican party, is glad to show you the gruesome truth of ISIS, but supports "our troops" and would never fight to show us the reality of our "liberation" of Iraq, or the children and families killed by constant drone attacks in Pakistan. I'm not even arguing against the drone attacks, I'm just saying that images matter and that's why we aren't allowed to see them when they reflect poorly on the US.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.