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."

Comments

I'd defer to whatever the man who died wished

[jjn1056]

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.

Re:I'd defer to whatever the man who died wished

[dotancohen]

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.

The video shows that man at his absolute best. I could never be as brave as that pilot watching the flames come for him. You _think_ that you've seen brave people in movies. This was a real brave person, handling a certain-death situation with more dignity than I've ever approached a problem in my life.

If you ever wonder what "dignity" and "bravery" mean, you'll have to watch that video. We see not only humans at their absolute worst, but we also see one human at the absolute best that a human could be.

Re:There is no legitimate reason to show it.

[bledri]

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.