Anyone else notice how the media/newspapers have been full of articles deliberatating and debating the merits of printing pictures of Saddams hanging?

While at the same time, very good quality mobile phone footage has been all over the web like a rash.

The media procrastination carried on, as if people haven't seen it already and it was still an irresistable scoop. Some even filled whole pages or tv segments spouting about having a moral duty to print/show more graphic pictures...without any pictures accompanying the piece!

Even though it's way too late now, the stories will probably shift to talking about the mobile phone video footage online of saddams last moments. .


It wasn't just saddam who was hanged....the media was too.

Even 24 news tv channels, who pride themselves on getting the first camera to the scene, were scooped by the internet.

All the procrastination and deliberation about what to print/show or not to print/show was futile. The Internet is now within reach of the majority of the planet and as a species we are, premominantly, rubberneckers by nature IMHO, so it was inevitable that people wanted to see it.

The question is, what do editors do now in future to remain an essential part of the news network?

The answer is, of course, they're screwed.

They're playing with different rules and different boundaries. They're essentially handcuffed and ill-equipped to compete with the immediacy of the
web.

do they switch to become less news orientated and more analysis/opinion/column orientated?

perhaps. But there's baggage there as well because a top independent blogger might be trusted more than a top newspaper columnist - who's bread and butter relies on ad revenue.

How could a columnist possibly say something negative about a corporation when the same corporation has a full page ad on the next page?

On the flip side, it leaves us, joe Public, wide open to carefully orchestrated propoganda.

A good example might be that online footage () of Saddam. The quality of the mobile footage "leaked" may have been a very deliberate and calculated move. Anyone who has a mobile phone will know that whoever took that video must have had a very good quality handset. My phone is considered very high spec and the quality and length of video I can take isn't even close to that "leaked" footage.

Which suggests that it wasn't an invited guest/journalist chancing his/her arm by slipping out their mobile....while at the same time standing in such a prominent position in the execution chamber. In fact the angle of the video suggests they had one of the best viewpoints in the room. The guards must have been watching the invited 'audience' very carefully for sabateurs or assassins. Someone pointing their hand at saddam with a small dark object in their hand would surely not have gone un-noticed.

While the value of ensuring as many people as possible truly believe that Saddam is dead, might justify the deliberate leakage of the mobile footage online, it's not rocketscience to deduce that the same tactic might be used for less justifiable or altruistic objectives.

Most of us are well able to disseminate bullshit from real news and spot Sandi Thom hype from a mile off, but I fear there is a lot that believes everything they read or see (online or offline) which might lead governments to try and curb the internet.

So as we hit another year...I wonder if youtube will survive the legal bashing it will get from record labels & TV execs in 2007...and the possibility of government intervention.

My money is on youtube folding in 2007, smothered by corporate litigation.

To me it's not just the dumb acceptance of killing as a socially approved game but the horrid GLEE with which so many of us treat it.

No desire to see a video of the hanging.

JK2006 wrote:
To me it's not just the dumb acceptance of killing as a socially approved game but the horrid GLEE with which so many of us treat it.

+1

A little bit of humanity died yesterday.

mediawatch wrote:
To me it's not just the dumb acceptance of killing as a socially approved game but the horrid GLEE with which so many of us treat it.

It's not just the general GLEE. Don't forget the relief, especially from British & US quarters.

Wouldn't it get very interesting if the same open-minded spirit that got the mobile phone footage online, also reveals the invoices & shipping receipts from the defense departments that supplied Saddam with the gear to carry out the crimes he was sentenced to death over.

Getting back to the core thread topic i.e. the future of news media versus youtube type sites, somehow I can't see the opinion pages in the telegraph or the graudian reminding people that the british government openly supported saddam during his heyday. ditto for skynews or cnn.

But I can see bloggers getting stuck in, perhaps using the famous pic of rumsfeld shaking hands with hussein to, ahem, brighten up the blog piece.

When it comes to footage, I think the saddam video, regardless of whether you agree or disagree about the death penalty, has hit a new watermark in open media and I can't see youtube type sites surviving the sheer volume of litigation coming it's way in 2007 from news & publishing corporations, the music industry and the rest.

Even the English Premierleague company has threatened legal action against youtube because videos of premiership goals are being uploaded without permission.

With billions of dollars involved, how long before the corporation execs start inviting blair on holidays to their caribbean hideaways to discuss throttling the open media sites?

let's face it. He can't exactly offer a peerage in return anymore. can he?

A little bit of humanity died yesterday.

I think that goes without saying, Zooloo, but, some might argue that humanity died a long time ago....it's just that youtube/cnn/sky news weren't there to cover it.

The point being that the royal 'we' don't really have a moral high horse to climb up on. If youtube/cnn/sky were around 20/30/more years ago, or back when the 'west' carved up the middle east, it might sound a tad hypocritical to be lamenting the demise of humanity because of some mobile phone footage of Saddam on youtube. Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle stuff.

There's a compelling argument to be made to get everything out in the open, so there's a certain transparancy about what's going on, but, I can't see that happening.

There's too much money involved and if litigation doesn't bury it, I can see new 'nanny state' legislation being introduced.