Melanie Phillips:
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...The Iraqi butchers are only taking these hostages and murdering them in this disgusting snuff-video style because the media -- of which I am a part -- are behaving exactly as required and putting these pictures on our screens and front pages. If the media did not do this, it would stop. I think therefore that we in the media have to examine our consciences and say we have a responsibility here beyond informing the public. We should not be giving these pictures this treatment; we should find ways of reporting the bare facts of what is going on without turning ourselves into accomplices to murder. Because that's what it is.
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...Yes, all terrorists exploit the media, and I don't think that all terrorist acts therefore should not be given any coverage. But what we are facing is not conventional terrorism, nor conventional warfare. We are in a totally unprecedented situation, one for which all our existing rules are simply inadequate. I think the western media cannot avoid the fact that it is now being used -- appallingly -- as a weapon of war against the west.
I think this piece in the Telegraph makes the point very well. Commenting on the fact that the US media has given the hoistage murderrs a low profile, it quotes the media columnist of the Washington Post who, after saying that unfortunately the number of these atrocities has now blunted their news value, adds this:
'Mr Kurtz also suggested that American newspaper editors - who are expected to be more high-minded than is always the case in Britain - were wary of allowing terrorists to force their way on to the front page by the sheer brutality of their crimes."I don't think there were any secret meetings of the media elite. But there seems to have been a subconscious desire to play down these incidents and not allow the terrorists to seize the press agenda," Mr Kurtz said. A similar defence was offered by the Chicago Tribune to its readers.The paper's ombudsman wrote: "The Tribune doesn't want to be in the position of a puppet with the Islamic kidnappers pulling the strings. To grab the attention of the American public and, yes, to terrorise them is the reason Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his henchmen stage these grisly murders." '
I think the British media should follow suit. But the problem is that America understands we are at war. Britain does not.
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