A graphic mistake
When the dead bodies of Odai and Qusai Hussein appeared on national television last week, many Americans were justifiably shocked.
After all, it's not every day that you turn on the news and see such grisly photos.
Ordinarily the United States media wouldn't even consider running such pictures. There would be no debate or questions, just an acknowledgment that the material was too graphic for TV.
But they aired anyway — and that was a huge mistake.
Why did the American public need to see these photos?
The whole point of taking pictures of the Husseins' bodies in the first place was to show them to the people of Iraq — so they'd feel confident that Saddam's regime was truly over.
But if that was the reason for the photos, why were they released to Americans? Why not Iraqis alone?
So maybe the blame lies partly with the United States government. Maybe they shouldn't have let the photos get into American hands.
The blame doesn't end there — it also lies with the American media outlets that chose to show the photos.
If the images were necessary to convey the story, then fine; show them. But in this case they weren't necessary. Instead, they were used for shock value. And they were used because everybody else was using them too, not because it was the "right thing to do."
Finally, think of the situation from another perspective. Many Iraqis are furious at the release of these disturbing photos, and rightly so. If the situation were reversed, wouldn't we have the right to be just as furious? If Al Jazeera aired photos of the corpses of our president's offspring, the outcry would be tremendous.
Sometimes the news shows terrible things. Sometimes those things need to be shown in order to convey truth.
But in this case, those photos didn't have to be shown. And they were too graphic for the mainstream media.
— JENNIFER WILSON
