Tammy Bruce: Networks "Wrestle" With Saddam Coverage

Networks "Wrestle" With Saddam Coverage

Time to get our tiny violins out.

Specifically, they're wringing their over whether or not to show any part of the Saddam execution video. I find this sudden concern, on CNN and Viacom's part especially, about showing an execution to be slightly disingenuous.

Nets Wrestle With Covering Saddam

NEW YORK -- Television news executives on Thursday debated what they're comfortable with showing in their coverage of Saddam Hussein's impending execution, which may be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV.

ABC and CBS said they wouldn't air the full execution if the video became available and might not air anything or show a brief, nongraphic portion. NBC and ABC plan to break into regular programming to announce that Saddam's sentence had been carried out. NBC News said it still was discussing what it would do, but it's clear it also won't run graphic footage.

"We're very aware that we're coming into people's living rooms and that there could be children watching," CBS News senior vp Linda Mason said. [Ha! This sudden sensitivity from Viacom (which brings us Showtime, MTV, and Janet Jackson's Superbowl 'wardrobe malfunction') is absolutely laughable--ed].

CNN and Fox News Channel still were discussing what they would do if the footage were made available. It also wasn't clear what the newly launched network Al-Jazeera International would do. An e-mail and phone call to the channel's Qatar headquarters weren't returned Thursday. Despite popular assumptions to the contrary, Al-Jazeera's pan-Arab channel has never shown an execution. [Stunning. This from the Hollywood Reporter which knows as well as you and I that Al-Jazeera is the preferred network for terrorists and was always the network which aired al-Qaida's pornographically violent videos of innocents being beheaded. Outrageous. Suddenly they're all sensitive, thoughtful people, contemplating the impact of showing a bloodless hanging. Beyond belief.--ed].

Astounding, isn't it? Here's CNN, which had absolutely no problem airing terrorist propaganda featuring their murder of our troops, and yet they struggle with airing a hooded mass murderer being hung. Why is that? Because it will be an image which reminds Americans that progress has been made, and is an undeniable reminder that justice for Saddam's million-plus victims was made possible by the USA. Today's leftist media, CNN in particular, are loathe to resent it. It has nothing to do with decency, They've already exposed their inherent indecency when they worked with terrorists and aired our loved ones being murdered. This is about their deliberate agenda and how images of a dispatched Saddam does not help them.

Oh, I wonder if CNN struggled with it's Watch-the-Iraqi-Sniper-Kill-An-American on demand video. I'm guessing, probably not.

Related Link:

Time to enjoy again Lynne Cheney's smackdown of Wolf Blitzer on the issue of CNN airing terrorist propaganda.

Posted by Tammy · December 29, 2006 04:53 PM · Permalink
Leftists | Mainstream Media | Military | War on Radical Islam

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I don't think this is easy, Tammy. Granted, Hussein was a brutal mass murderer who enjoyed the savagery and was a vicious, oppressive dictator. But showing executions on television approaches or crosses a line that we all know exists. The networks cannot be taken seriously when they feign sanctimony. It still doesn't mean they need to show this.

Posted by: Lib85 at December 29, 2006 05:47 PM

The networks should show Saddam talking his last walk, going up the steps, the hood being placed on his head, the rope being placed around his neck, the trapdoor being opened, and him falling through and hanging by the neck until dead. If for no other reason it should be done so the American people will know that conspiracy buffs like Cynthia McKinney and Hillary Rodham Clinton are full of it when they claim Saddam is still alive and living in Crawsford, Texas.

Posted by: St. Thor at December 29, 2006 06:05 PM

Why the sudden attack of squeamishness by the MSM considering the way they gloat over American death in the war on Terror? Heckfire - CNN even had "Sniper-Cam" which glorified the terrorists in Iraq! And what about the videos they showed of terrorists tormenting their victims before beheading them?

I suspect that the MSM's real reluctance is similar to the way they reacted to the discovery of WMDs in Iraq - it does not fit their hard-left political agenda, so they want to hide it.

In America the MSM has the right to show what they want on their networks. And we as citizens have the right to point out what the MSM is - a bunch of hypocrites and liars.

Posted by: Mwalimu Daudi at December 29, 2006 06:10 PM

I've seen the slow motion assassination of JFK about a thousand times on television. I've seen footage of Nazi executions as well. Historic events of this caliber are exceptions, they transcend traditional mores. Saddam's event is a lesson in morality itself - social justice and social progress rolled into one.
Not only would I like to see Saddam's death video, but I would also like to see the building security video of Sandy Berglar stashing stolen National Archive's papers under a trailer. If such a video exists, certainly it can be FOI'ed?

Posted by: helpunderdog at December 29, 2006 06:23 PM

Here’s a brief study of the press decisions to run graphic photos when the the charred bodies of four Americans were hanged from a bridge and children danced.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/04-2NRSummer/71-74V58N2.pdf

Images of Horror From Fallujah
‘The transparency of angst and indecision about the Fallujah images
have been good for journalism.’

On March 31, 2004, Iraqi terrorists,throwing grenades, killedfour American civilian contractors who were driving through the city of Fallujah, Iraq. A quickly swelling crowd of civilians then beat the burned bodies (with anything in hand, including shoes), dragged them through the streets, and hung two of them from a nearby Euphrates River bridge. Many onlookers and participants danced with joy and chanted anti-American slogans.

What Americans saw from Fallujah was determined by their news source. [See table showing Fallujah photos used by American newspapers on page 73.] The New York Times ran on its front page The Associated Press (AP) photo (Contractors Hanging on Bridge) in color, which included the clearly visible bodies with celebrating Iraqis in the foreground. The Times’s executive editor, Bill Keller, said of this decision: “You can’t shy away from the news, and the news in this case is the indignities visited upon the victims and the jubilation of the crowd.”

The Washington Post ran a cropped version on page A11 of the Ali Jasim (Reuters) photo with a smiling boy in the foreground. [See photo on page 71.] Len Downie, the paper’s executive editor, stated: “We owed readers photographic as well as print reporting about what took place.

For regional papers as well, the predicament was as palpable. The Palm Beach Post ran the AP photo (Contractors Hanging on Bridge) on its front page. John Bartosek, the paper’s managing editor, claimed, “We selected that photograph, after a lot of thought and discussion, because it’s a powerful news image of a dramatic, horrific and brutal day in Iraq.”

Posted by: pat_s at December 29, 2006 06:55 PM

Lest we forget:
http://iraqiholocaust.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Asher Abrams at December 29, 2006 06:56 PM

TV stations showed the bodies of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Posted by: helpunderdog at December 29, 2006 07:07 PM

I have been watching the cable's all night, the worst of the lot (as predicted was Al-CNN), go to the webpage for pete's sake. The obit for Sadaam was nicer than that of President Ford!! However, on the most part, they are doing a good job, all of them. The irony? The horrors of what this man did are being better explained tonight than anytime ever on the news channels..seems they feel they need to justify his execution in some way. In any event, I must give them okay marks. Not breathless reporting so far as I can tell, and with a few lib lapses at CNN, pretty fair..So and all a good night for them. Now, where are those pictures of him swinging? Ghoulish? Nope. This man's idol was Stalin..he bussed woman and children in to be executed for the 'fun of it', tonight he rots in hell with his idol and Hitler as far as I am concerned. It's in God's hands now.
The intersting news for me was the celebrations shown not just on all the cable's, from Deerborn to Iraq. While I am not celebrating, I certainly am not mourning. The Butcher of Baghdad is dead, good. May this be the point that the Iraqi's pick it up a notch, grab the opportunity and start working for their own country. It's time to put the pieces back together again.
Rachel

Posted by: Trinity at December 29, 2006 10:54 PM

They should show it as a reminder of what happen when you practice evil on people.

Posted by: kcnut at December 30, 2006 02:07 AM

The MSM was really scared about this execution. They were scared it might actually help Bush's approval ratings. I'm not kidding. Did anyone watch Larry King last night? They actually had a discussion on this subject. Larry King ask the brilliant question, would the execution of Saddam help Bush's approval ratings, huh. The only people who would think to ask such a moronic question like that is someone who was actually concerned that Bush might be helped by this execution. These people are so blinded by their hatred of Bush that it clouds every thought and question that comes out of their little minds. With our soldiers lives on the line in Iraq, with countries like Iran and N. Korea getting nuclear weapons, the only thing that concerns this lunatics is Bush's approval ratings and how they can drive them lower. They don't even have the gray matter to realize that he is a lame duck President and has no power to do anything else. They are really sickos.

Posted by: SteveOk at December 30, 2006 05:30 PM

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