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Paris Media Attacks and Media Response

Lazairus

Greetings

Ive been watching the paris Terror episode on Tv and Ive been wondering on the issue of media coverage.

Issues such as showing the shooting Dead of a police office on S*y TV.
(The film nightcrawler comes to my mind. )

or photographers taking pics of Police getting ready to storm the buildings where the hostiges were kept.

The whole episode was tragic but the coverage is questionable.

The real winner in all this was 24hr news.

What do you think?

Laz

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AboutaWeekAgo

Kay Burley was in her element

RobYourBuilder

Media outlets had no problem showing graphics pictures of Ahmed Merabets execution but bottled(generally) publishing the CH cartoons. I think that says a lot. Personally, I don't think that they should have released the pictures out of respect to the deceased and his family.

ScumLord

The problem with not showing the violence is that it can become a story. People can take the facts and fill in the blanks, they can make things sound noble or heroic. When you see the violence with your own eyes there's no ignoring the horror, it shocks you and it makes it harder for people to insert their agenda into the situation because all you see is a person dying.

wretcheddomain

You can't avoid reality by hiding behind "respect for the deceased" all the time. People need to see the graphic nature of the consequences of these terrorist gangs.

Reoil

If you don't show it, how are people supposed to know what terrible atrocities are happening in the world? You need to be educated to change things for the better.

peckerhead

Guy who shot that footage says he regrets releasing it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-man-regrets-stupid-decision-to-put-video-of-police-officers-death-online-9971750.html

And for the conspiracy theorists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJEvlKKm6og

Duggy747

peckerhead wrote: »

And for the conspiracy theorists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJEvlKKm6og

People in those comments watch too many Hollywood films and think the head should explode into red mist.

Anyways, usual suspects I know on Facebook were well on the ball to call the shooters American agents and the whole thing a false flag.

Harry Palmr

Lazairus wrote: »

Greetings

Ive been watching the paris Terror episode on Tv and Ive been wondering on the issue of media coverage.

Issues such as showing the shooting Dead of a police office on S*y TV.
(The film nightcrawler comes to my mind. )

or photographers taking pics of Police getting ready to storm the buildings where the hostiges were kept.

The whole episode was tragic but the coverage is questionable.

The real winner in all this was 24hr news.

What do you think?

Laz

Have you seen Charlie Brookers take on this type of coverage? Its so right, its depressing that TV News clearly prefers excitement over good judgement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

anncoates

The problem here is that the traditional blame apportion model beloved of the left is a bit anachronistic. It's no longer always a monolithic media organ(s) dictating what people 'think' and see in the media. The organs are often pandering to public tastes and increasingly using 'news' provided by the public.

Modern - ubiquitous - news coverage is also basically opt-in: people can largely decide what news they want to consume.

And in the case of the video of Ahmed Merabet's murder: it's actually democratic in a perverse way: uploaded by a member of the public and consumed - avidly it seems - by the public. The official media organs actually just followed with - and censored - it.

conorh91

What has option (b), "it's a free country", got to do with whether media reporting has become to graphic?

Media reporting is too graphic, or else it is not. The fact that it's a free country is irrelevant. Nobody's saying we should silence the sensationalist media organizations we dislike, I don't even think we should silence that complete idiot from the Sindo who apparently pestered the family of a crash victim yesterday, during her funeral.

I don't think the coverage of the Paris shootings was too graphic, but I do think it can get too graphic on other occasions, in ways that achieve absolutely nothing. For example, there was a case a few years ago where a corpse had to be exhumed for forensic testing. This kind of thing would only happen early in the morning, out of respect to the family, and wouldn't be advertised., But sure enough! RTE or TV3 were there to capture the event, or as much as they could see of it from behind the blue screens.

Why? seriously, why?

mad muffin

Is this site now censoring Sky?:eek:

Hmmm… doesn't look like it.

Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky. Nope not censored.

I wonder why it is in the OP?

TommyKnocker

Duggy747 wrote: »

People in those comments watch too many Hollywood films and think the head should explode into red mist.

Anyways, usual suspects I know on Facebook were well on the ball to call the shooters American agents and the whole thing a false flag.

While I don't doubt that the police man is dead, I have to admit that I would question whether he was shot in the head. I believe a close range head shot with a 7.62 calibre bullet from an AK would indeed cause massive trauma on exit and there would have been brain and blood splatter on the pavement.

Also the head would have moved forward with the force of the shot and there appeared no movement.

Finally you can clearly see the dust kicked up where the bullet hit the pavement in front of the police mans head.

So while I would not usually be a conspiracy theorist, I have to admit I have my doubts about what it is claimed that footage shows.

I have no issues with the footage being shown, but I read yesterday that Ahmeds wife watched the footage unaware that she was watching her husband be killed and also his brother recognised his voice and knew it was Ahmed. So I believe it should not be shown until at least after the family have been notified and possibly not until after the attack had ended.

As for showing the police move into position to go in, well they may as well just phone the terrorists and give them a play by play of the police actions.

ScumLord

TommyKnocker wrote: »

Also the head would have moved forward with the force of the shot and there appeared no movement.

That's not a certainty. I've seen videos of people getting shot and in many the person being shot just drops you can't actually see the bullet impact, there's no blood spraying out of them and they're not thrown in any way by the bullet. In many cases when people get shot they feel nothing in the first moments, they don't even know they've been shot until they start seeing blood. People often don't bleed quite as much from a gunshot as we're lead to believe either.

Finally you can clearly see the dust kicked up where the bullet hit the pavement in front of the police mans head.

It could be a ricochet or gas escaping the gun barrel.

Peist2007

Too graphic? No, we need to see these things. Once family are informed the footage should be shown in the public's interest. How can one abhor horror and it not be a platitude without seeing just how utterly wanton such horror is? If anything the news needs to be more graphic.

The question should be whether the news is too sensationalist and i think it is. Think of the Boston Bombers last year. Cover of Rolling Stone magazine looking all pouty. That is the fault of the news turning evil extremist indoctrinated idiots into almost celebrities. Any extremist with an ego surely gets a kick out of it. Imagine fervently hoping for martyrdom and watching Kay Burley and Martin Brunt in a field talking about how terrible an individual you are and how you are extremely dangerous? I think the news coverage feeds into the whole narrative in this respect.

smash

Lazairus wrote: »

The whole episode was tragic but the coverage is questionable.

No it's not. It's real life. Would you rather a headline along the lines of "3 dead after shooting" with an accompanying video of children petting puppies?

RobertKK

We can put our heads in the sand and avoid seeing the reality of what is happening.

When it is evil people doing stuff, we shouldn't censor the images of what they do.
Reality is reality and censorship does nothing positive in this regard. I mean if we don't see reality, we don't get affected by it and it just leaves us living in ignorance.
Is the role of the media to leave the general population in a state of ignorance by deciding for us what they deem to be right?

If we want to fight fundamentalists who are intent on killing innocent people, then we should be shown as much as possible. What I saw on Sky was where the police man was down on the ground and he had his hands raised as if begging for his life to be spared, with the gunman having his weapon pointed at him before he killed the police man.
The image was and is important, it showed first hand how ruthless and cold blooded these people are.

It is like the images we have seen time and time again as the planes were flown into the twin towers, right there we saw people being murdered, we saw people deciding to jump to their death rather than burn to death in those towers.
I don't think we should censor the acts of terrorists, we need to see the reality.
Ignorance to the reality of the world is to make the people ignorant to the threats in this world.
Visuals have the greatest impact on humans.

RobYourBuilder

Peist2007 wrote: »

Too graphic? No, we need to see these things. Once family are informed the footage should be shown in the public's interest.

Would you be saying that if it were your family member or close friend who was just murdered?

lertsnim

If it prevented the conspiracy theorist bollocks about that policeman being shot then I would support a ban on it. Idiots posting that nonsense should be ashamed of themselves. The man's family are grieving while the idiots of the internet say he's not dead.

thomasj

Ask yourself, could you live with just rte news everyday?

Peist2007

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Would you be saying that if it were your family member or close friend who was just murdered?

Not a clue how i would react to such a terrible thing happening to my family. But, thankfully, the grieving families are not allowed to determine what is in the interests of the greater good. They should have our respect but the horror needs to be relayed

Grayson

I don't know if it's been mentioned in another thread but someone on fox news described Birmingham as an entirely muslim city last night.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/12/fox-news-expert-ridiculed-over-birmingham-is-totally-muslim-city-claims

People are of course responding in the expected manner
https://twitter.com/RichardA/status/554419434237214720/photo/1

COYVB

The issue isn't whether it's become too graphic, but rather that it's become entertainment instead of responsible reporting. Broadcasters are only feeding the public desire, and the public seems to get off on low-brow, tabloidy reporting of events. The round the clock, 24/7 news cycle needs to make a massive deal about tragedy. They don't give a toss about what's going on, just how it's wrapped and served up to the great unwashed, who are salivating over it, and demanding every modicum of information in the goriest detail. Eyeballs mean ad revenue, and human tragedy is GREAT for viewer numbers

Lazairus

mad muffin wrote: »

Is this site now censoring Sky?:eek:

Hmmm… doesn't look like it.

Sky, Sky, Sky, Sky. Nope not censored.

I wonder why it is in the OP?

Was watching sky tv at work.

It showed the excution of Ahmed Merabet on TV.

After watching Nightcrawler, Ive become alot more pessimstic of 24hr news.

Thanks for all the replys, Its a intersting debate.

Streetwalker

The likes of Sky news trying to look all sombre when news of an attack comes out is quite frankly sickening. They love that sh it.

Lazairus

COYVB wrote: »

The issue isn't whether it's become too graphic, but rather that it's become entertainment instead of responsible reporting. Broadcasters are only feeding the public desire, and the public seems to get off on low-brow, tabloidy reporting of events. The round the clock, 24/7 news cycle needs to make a massive deal about tragedy. They don't give a toss about what's going on, just how it's wrapped and served up to the great unwashed, who are salivating over it, and demanding every modicum of information in the goriest detail. Eyeballs mean ad revenue, and human tragedy is GREAT for viewer numbers

Agree, There is a certian level of Entertainment in 24 hour news. The news channels are developing the story and not just telling it as it is, theres a certian slant to all this.

Donkey Oaty

Grayson wrote: »

I don't know if it's been mentioned in another thread but someone on fox news described Birmingham as an entirely muslim city last night.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/12/fox-news-expert-ridiculed-over-birmingham-is-totally-muslim-city-claims

People are of course responding in the expected manner
https://twitter.com/RichardA/status/554419434237214720/photo/1

The Fox News story has united people even more than the terrorists.

Telegraph:

An American “terrorism expert” who claimed that Birmingham is a Muslim-only city is “clearly a complete idiot”, David Cameron has said.

ScumLord

COYVB wrote: »

The issue isn't whether it's become too graphic, but rather that it's become entertainment instead of responsible reporting. Broadcasters are only feeding the public desire, and the public seems to get off on low-brow, tabloidy reporting of events. The round the clock, 24/7 news cycle needs to make a massive deal about tragedy. They don't give a toss about what's going on, just how it's wrapped and served up to the great unwashed, who are salivating over it, and demanding every modicum of information in the goriest detail. Eyeballs mean ad revenue, and human tragedy is GREAT for viewer numbers

I don't think people are salivating over tragedy, we just can't help but take interest in another persons suffering. The media take advantage of that fact.

While I think the media need to report the news as frankly as possible there's certainly a growing percentage that are taking advantage of tragedy to sell their wares. They do sensationalise everything and then go to extreme opinions to encourage arguments rather than debate.

That's why I don't follow mainstream media, I wouldn't trust them to tell me if it's raining outside.

wendell borton

Have no problem with them showing it is as long as it pertinent to their story. But unfortionetly it mostly shown in a gratuedious nature to sell shallow content, the majority of tabloids showing that cop being killed was just wrong.

COYVB

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think people are salivating over tragedy

Ah I think they are tbh. You've got a certain element that, when something happens, they become completely absorbed by it - not because of empathy, but for entertainment purposes.

24 hour news coverage, as well as some elements of social media and the overarching internet always-on culture, has turned news reporting into click baiting and one-up-manship more than actual careful and considered delivery of facts - and that in itself is a playing its part in causing more and more fanaticism across the board.

In a world where anything and everything is reported, it's easier than ever to create terror among the masses.

Capt'n Midnight

Reoil wrote: »

If you don't show it, how are people supposed to know what terrible atrocities are happening in the world? You need to be educated to change things for the better.

61 Journalists killed in 2014

But you'll only have heard of the ones that have been beheaded because that's what the media is promoting.

Yes the media should report the deaths, no it shouldn't give the oxygen of publicity to terrorists by going into details.