I’ve made this comment in a couple places, so I figured I might as well go on and say it here.
I’m ambivalent about the fact that the Nick Berg beheading video is available on the internet. Obviously the terrorist group that did it put it out there for a reason. I don’t necessarily think it should be banned or kept from folks. But why is there so much demand for it? (Actually, I have no idea exactly how much demand there is for it, but I’m sure it’s linked everywhere and I get the feeling plenty of people will watch it.)
That said, I downloaded it, but I’m not sure I’ll watch it. Same as with the Daniel Pearl video. Not even the most “realistic” of movie scenes can compare to knowing that what you’re watching is real. My stomach turns just thinking about it.
UPDATE: Apparently two local Twin Cities radio stations played the audio on the air today. The text of that Star Tribune article is below.
Twin Cities radio stations air audio of beheading
Deborah Caulfield Rybak, Star Tribune
May 13, 2004Two Twin Cities radio shows on Wednesday played the entire audio portion of a video of the beheading of American Nick Berg by Islamic militants.
Top-rated morning host Tom Barnard of KQRS (92.5 FM) played the tape only after repeatedly warning listeners, as did KSTP (1550 AM) midmorning co-hosts Ron Rosenbaum and Mark O’Connell.
Barnard talked of little else during the show. He was particularly incensed that, while pictures of prisoner abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison had been widely shown, this video was not.
“We should be outraged at what happened to this man,” said Barnard, who polled listeners about whether or air the audio of Berg’s screams as he was executed with a knife, while his executioners chanted “God is great” in Arabic.
He finally aired it after warnings to keep children out of earshot, as well as telling listeners that the tape was not being played to incite violence.
At KSTP, Rosenbaum said, “We felt we had to play it since we’d been very critical of the TV networks sanitizing World Trade Center footage of people jumping out of the buildings” during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Officials at both stations said responses to the broadcasts were mainly positive.
“Our response has been 4-to-1 favorable,” said KQRS general manager Amy Rosenthal.
“It wasn’t an easy call,” said KSTP program director Joe O’Brien, “but it was the topic everyone is talking about today.”
No local television stations broadcast the video in its entirety but aired only a portion before Berg was killed. “One didn’t need to see or hear the entire tape to know what happened,” said Jeff Kiernan, news director at WCCO, Channel 4.
Ted Canova, news director for Fox-owned KMSP, Channel 9, and WFTC, Channel 29, said Tuesday’s late newscasts aired the tape just until the terrorist pulled out the knife, “but we made sure we broadcast several disclaimers before doing so.”
