The media’s broadcasting of ISIS videos: right or wrong?

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]onsidering the gruesome and macabre nature of their content, it is both unsurprising and relieving that ISIS’ video output is not unavoidable viewing in the irksome way that an advert or a dull political speech ends up being. Questions would rightfully be asked if between the Miliband sound-bites and product slogans we were also regularly subjected to scenes from a beheading. But when Fox News decided to broadcast in full the 22-minute video which culminates in the immolation of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the furious outrage they encountered seemed paper-thin in its justification and argumentation.

It may be understatedly described as somewhat ‘insensitive’ to al-Kasasbeh’s family to have broadcast his final moments. The actual graphic depiction of the pilot, covered in flammable liquid, inside a cage, being burned to death before the flames still blackening his corpse are extinguished by the dropping of concrete and debris from a digger above. But the enormous international and geopolitical significance of the moment is worth remembering.

Are such local concerns often borne in mind – let alone allowed to dictate the reaction – when events like this occur? Those who advance this argument should consider that already having the world incessantly reporting and discussing a family member’s execution is probably less than palliative for distress.

And the enormous weight of importance carried by this event eclipses other interests. Whether the decision was right or not does not depend on this question.

Malcolm Nance, director of the ‘Terror Asymmetric’s Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology’ (the what?) told the Guardian that Fox News were “literally – literally – working for Al-Qaeda and ISIS’ media arm”, adding that they “might as well start sending them royalty checks.” I am baffled by what seems to be hidden behind this statement from the director of the empty-buzzword-how-many-syllables-is-that-now-bureacracy. Is Mr. Nance really so insecure about the public’s capacity for resisting propaganda? How confident can we be in our own opposition to such hateful barbarity and toxic inhumanity if we balk that staring ISIS in its face is simply offering the group a ‘platform’?

There are some who decry the broadcast of the video because they are worried it will incite fear, believing that this would in some way be playing into the hands of those who created and released it. But it is not the role of the media to prevent the hurting of my feelings – thanks.

The public has a right to see what is happening and a right to react. Totalitarian Islamism is something you should be scared of. Millions of people live constantly in much closer fear and we owe it to them to empathise. And perhaps fear might engender a strengthened resolution in the face of this terror.

Some concessions: I entirely accept that the broadcasting of an execution is crass, and as mentioned I am pleased that these images are not ubiquitous. I also note that Fox failed to cut off the roll call of assassination targets with which the video ends; quite indefensible stupidity. But if it is decided by a broadcast organisation not to treat its audience like children and to actually report the news rather than offering said audience merely a chewed-up reaction to it, I can’t find myself indignant.

As a final remark, I feel I must note my bafflement at having ended up writing in defence of Fox News. In future I hope it is not left to the traditional Volksempfänger of bigotry and ignorance to let us know what’s really going on.