Posted on 05/13/2004 6:30:25 AM PDT by Maigrey
First, there was the release of prison pictures taken by soldiers at Abu Ghraib. 60 Minutes II ran with it, and the next evening, Dan Rather - the stalwart anchor for the CBS Evening News - repudiated the reason for running the pictures to "make sure that other news companies didn't run the pictures before they did."
Since the statement was disseminated by Dan Rather, that would sound reasonable and understandable, right? Wrong. The pictures, at the time, were part of an exclusive - meaning no one else had them at the time - for the show. So, how could anyone else, except for maybe Matt Drudge at The Drudge Report, be able to get the pictures to scoop CBS News? They wouldn’t, until after the pictures are published. So, if they can't get scooped, then why have the figurehead of the network make the statement? Answer: ratings and adverting dollars!
For the record, in the television media, May is the adverting sweep. This is when the network compiles the viewer coverage numbers from Nielsen Ratings, and from those numbers, they can set adverting rates for these shows, and for the overall network. If the show has more viewers, and better ratings, they can charge more for the adverting spots on these shows. (Why do you think you see more local adverting during the less popular shows, and national/international companies during the higher rated shows? That is because they more popular the show, the higher the cost to advertise on it.)
The publishing of the prison photos have been a boon for the news media, and 60 Minutes II as a news program on traditional television. Print media is no different. Earlier this week, The Boston Globe ran pictures supposedly showing more prisoner abuse photographs. They were graphic, and bordered on the pornographic to obscene. They also had the disclaimer to state that the pictures they were running could not be verified at that time. So, why would they run them when they were not verified to be accurate? The decision was made to generate interest and garner higher circulation sales. Did this ploy work? Yes, in short-term financial growth, but at greater cost in something that means more than money for a newspaper.
If the editors hadn't been in such haste to "scoop" more unpublished photos, they would have found, through the information published at WorldNet Daily as well as the US State Department that the photographs they published were not only fake, but also staged scenes being used by a hardcore pornography website.
So, not only being in a hurry to publish purient images for the sake of circulation, they also sacrificed their journalistic integrity on the alter of the all-mighty dollar. Sounds like a poor investment to me.
However, with the boon in ratings, and higher advertising rates for the future, what was the real life cost for publishing the pictures?
The current cost is one man's life, according to his executioners. One young man, who was in Iraq as a private contractor, was killed over the weekend as a repercussion of the pictures. Nick Berg was murdered in cold blood by evil terrorists "... in retaliation {of} the abuses occurring at Abu Ghraib." Berg's death - barbaric, hideous, and ghoulish - was taped for the world to see, and the images placed on an al-quaeda linked website. Fox News had foreign correspondents inquire with the people in Iraq what their opinions of these actions. Some ranged in horror, to ambivalence to outright support for the terrorist actions.
Newspapers had to decide whether to publish either descriptions and/or pictures from the videotape. The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal ran a wire story describing the video, and also ran some early pictures of the video, along with a wire photo of some family members' grief.
USA Today ran the story, along with some early photos.
The Chicago Tribune ran the story, along with the video capture image of the seconds before Berg's death.
The New York Times ran a snipped of the incident, but then is also still focusing on the prison scandal.
24-hour news channels had to decide how much time they devoted to this story. Fox News (starting in the one pm hour slot, was to the point of being green after watching it, and then informing viewers that they would not be showing the video footage in full. This did not stop Shepard Smith from giving a warning that he was going to describe the scenes from the video for viewers.
CNN – the bastion of “the news channel more people watch” continued with their coverage of the Senate Armed Services Committee investigations, and only later did they have any coverage of this hideous incident.
MSNBC was the same as CNN: more driven with the Senate hearings rather than the brutal death of this one contractor.
So, as a news consumer, there should be this question: which story will generate revenue for your media outlet? A vicious murder of an American independent contractor, recorded for all to see, or an ongoing scandal, which puts all soldiers and marines in the war at risk, which could implicate people in the military and beyond?
If any of the 24-hour news channels and print media have their way, they will publish and show what can bring them the most funds, even if it isn't journalistically ethical. The same can be said for the print papers.
In the end, will having published the pictures provided a service for the readers and viewers? I think the publishers and editors at the Boston Globe as well as the producers at CNN will be able to answer that in due time.
Contact webmaster at Gonzo News Service
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