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1. Broadcasting any part of terrorist hostage videos is giving terrorists the

oxygen of publicity. There can be no ethical justification for doing so.
Discuss.

There can be no doubt that the media has helped to provide a platform for
terrorism on a global scale. This essay will analyse to what extent the media
should be held accountable in terms of the publicity they generate around
terrorism. I will be analysing the ethical doctrines of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle
and use their work to try and relate to the modern day ethical situations that UK
broadcasters have had to deal with. I will also develop a viewpoint using both of
the theorists’ work and the legal system to see the extent to which UK
broadcasters should or should not give terrorism the oxygen of publicity.

I have decided to compare the ethical viewpoints of Immanuel Kant and

Aristotle because they offer two very different schools of thought. Immanuel Kant
(1724 – 1804) believed in a deontological or duty based ethical standpoint;
Aristotle (383 – 322 BC) by contrast believed in the truth that resided in the
creativity of the human experience or a virtuous standpoint of human flourishing.
Kantian ethics concentrates on morals whereas Aristotle placed greater onus on
the kind a person we should be, which I feel is relevant in the light of
international terrorism. It is important to investigate the ethical doctrines of the
two philosophers in greater detail so that we can gain a better understanding of
the parallels seen in modern day media broadcasting.

Immanuel Kant wrote of a deontological imperative that ultimately placed

God as the omnipotent being. The reason God was so important to Kant was
because if God didn’t exist then there could be no way of justifying that living a
good life would eventually lead to the highest level of behaviour, and Kantian
ethics reflect this progressive attitude. ‘There has to be a sense of moral duty,
not the self interest of personal feelings or the gratification of an objective or
goal” [Crook, 2010, 157]

Kant placed a higher moral value on the internal feelings and norms of an
individual. In other words Kant was stating that the sense of duty in an individual
varies and this variation is termed ‘categorical imperative’. Kant thought that
each individual has a duty to tell the truth, even if it may harm others and this
was paramount even if the categorical imperative varied between individuals. In
sum, duty based theories do not approve of using morally wrong methods even if
one was to achieve a good result.

Aristotle’s ethics stressed the importance of character and conduct over a

person’s life. He wrote that virtues were the most important ethicological
discourse, ‘Human virtue was the pattern of behaviour and feeling of an
individual’s life, and includes emotions as well as an intelligent judgement in
responding to situations’. [Crook, 2010, 156] Experience and observation play a
more important role than personal value judgements. Aristotle bases some of his
theory on the ‘golden mean’, which in essence states that an individual must
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weigh a moral case equally, ‘the mean is not only the right quantity, but it occurs
at the right time, toward the right people, for the right reason and in the right
manner’. [Christians, 2005, 12]

Aristotle’s theoretical approach means that there is a structure that has

been built up over time. It is this social structure that provides the principles that
‘regulate the human condition in terms of balancing the social relationship
between individual interests and protecting those values considered vital for the
survival and maintenance of human society’. [Crook, 2010, 166] It is important
to note that Aristotle did postulate that some things cannot be balanced as per
the ‘golden mean’ and things such as murder and rape will always be evil and
morally incomprehensible. Terrorism is arguably a reactive act in response to
actions of the West, and I will be questioning this in light of Aristotle’s golden
mean.

It is essential that newscasters think critically about the decision to

broadcast terrorist related media. Before news producers’ powers of reason can
operate at optimum efficiency, they must understand the issue of terrorism
itself, the facts of the situation, and the values, principles, and moral duties
inherent in the case. However, it is extremely unlikely that newscasters can
gather all relevant information relating to that problem, so they must rely on
their morals. Using the ethics of the two philosophers I will now investigate the
two moral outcomes, which will provide a much clearer picture as to the ‘right’
decision to make in regards to broadcasting terrorist hostage videos.

The first case I am going to investigate is that of the Nick Berg beheading.
The Nick Berg beheading was originally broadcast on a website through a single
video clip lasting no more than six minutes in duration. If the video was
broadcast from start to finish it would have shown the violent massacre in
gruesome detail, and so a moral dilemma is presented to the newscasters in
terms of how much content should be broadcast. I will use the SAD formula to
analyse the situation because it is one that could be used in a real time news
broadcast environment. The SAD formula (originally formulated by Potter) follows
three stages: definition, analysis and finally a decision, asking for moral
judgements throughout the process.

The Nick Berg beheading took place on 8th May 2004 and the execution
was broadcast three days later on the website of the militant group Muntada al-
Ansar under the title of "Abu Musa'b al-Zarqawi slaughters an American". The
conflicting values are that of the right to privacy and confidentiality of the victim
against the right of the public to receive information. There are also ethical
questions raised: is it ethical for the public to be shown such a horrific incident of
death? Secondly, is it ethical for newscasters to report on the savage way Nick
Berg was murdered given that the second gulf war was supposed to win the
hearts and minds of both the coalition forces and the people of Iraq?

The arguments for the broadcast to go ahead were that this incident was a
part of the Iraq war, and one might argue that viewers deserve to know every
newsworthy detail, from stories of heroism, to stories of death and destruction,
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as in the case of Nick Berg. Furthermore, newscasters do not have to show the
execution itself; they can show the video right up to the execution. Thus, it could
be argued that if viewers really wanted to see the execution they could view it
online, and by the mere fact of it being reported by newscasters, they are being
offered this option.

Conversely, there is a strong argument for the newscaster not to

broadcast the video, that they should instead enforce a media black out of the
event. The reasons behind this are that the beheading is offensive to viewers,
not least the Berg family and broadcasting it would give the terrorists exactly
what they wanted – the oxygen of publicity.

Journalists such as Jason Burke have argued that it is precisely because of

traditional news values that terrorist groups have decided to use such extreme
violence in order to get the message across: ‘killers imagine the audience for
their carefully constructed drama in two parts: the Muslim world in the stalls, the
West in the cheap seats. The aim is to challenge both parts, provoking a different
response in each’. [Burke, 2004, Observer Online] It is only in the twenty first
century that online viral videos of brutal terrorists acts have become
commonplace, but external factors such as company policy must be adhered to.
Unfortunately, company policy is precisely the issue we are debating, and so we
must look towards duties and ethical viewpoints in order to come to an informed
decision. Indeed, various parties are affected by the ethical judgement that
needs to be made, and these parties are that of the immediate family and
general public. It is therefore important to analyse the situation using the ethics
of Kant and Aristotle.

Morality is rooted in conscience and it is for this reason that I have decided
to start with Kantian ethics. We cannot ignore the philosophy of religion because
whether or not we believe in God; religion determines the nature of the mind and
body in the face of good and evil. According to Kantian ethics, ‘act only on that
maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become universal
law’ [Kant, 1964, 71]. I accept that while the actual beheading was not
broadcast on mainstream television, it still gave the beheading the oxygen of
publicity. Indeed even today if you search for ‘Nick Berg beheading’ you are
provided with a plethora of video streaming networks in which one can view the
video. The beheading itself was, of course, immoral and, in line with Kantian
ethics, murder will always be so. And from this follows the view that news of the
murder should not have been broadcast.

Aristotle’s virtues are defined by a career of character and emotional

development whereby ‘the wise person within whom there are well integrated
traits of character is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong’ [Christians et al,
2005, 10] There can be no doubt that the Iraq war is full of uncertainty and
ambiguity. However, the fact of the matter is that the Iraq War is happening,
and so in the case of Nick Berg, the newscasters have to come to a middle
ground. Not showing the beheading at all would deny the horrors of war,
whereas broadcasting the whole video would give the terrorists what they want,
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and subject the immediate family to more pain and suffering. Neo-Aristotelian
supporters would suggest that natural justice is achieved by the attainment of a
state of goodness. The golden mean would be, perhaps, to broadcast the non-
violent parts of the video. However, I feel that broadcasting the video could be
justified in that it shows its audience the horrors of war, and help to build
opposition to it as the atrocities will ‘jolt people out of their apathy’ [Keeble,
2001, 243]

To sum up, modern day moral decisions that media broadcasters have
been faced with in the case of Nick Berg, would suggest that Kantian Ethics are
far too uncompromising for the complex world we live in. Although duty based
ethics in theory would produce a remarkably cohesive society, in practice I feel
that situations warrant some sort of concession, especially in regards to
terrorism. In line with Aristotle’s golden mean, the decision to broadcast parts of
the video that show Nick Berg in front of his captors, without broadcasting the
actual beheading would be the right one to make. While this does imply the
covering or withholding of certain truths, in the modern world, where the
majority of people in Western culture have access to the Internet, such atrocities
can be viewed easily online.

The Nick Berg Beheading was clearly a complex moral issue. However it
was not one that would help prevent or at least prolong the loss of lives. Many
might argue that saving another life is the ultimate duty, and for the purpose of
determining whether or not the Kenneth Bigley video should have been
broadcast, this discussion will draw upon Potter’s Box of Moral Reasoning. The
Potter box model identifies four areas of reasoning: definition, values, principles
and loyalties. While much like the SAD formula, the first two areas are
descriptive (referring to what actually happens) and the latter two are normative
(referring to what ought to happen). It is important to note that it is precisely
because we have no control over terrorists that these models of reasoning
should be used. Once a conclusion has been reached, I feel that a justified
opinion on whether broadcasting terrorist hostage videos is ethical or not can be
finalised.

Definition is the first stage of Potter’s analytical approach, and in terms of

definition newscasters could only use what material they had. Kenneth Bigley
was a British citizen who was working as a civil engineer when he was kidnapped
in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad in Iraq on 16th September 2004 along with
two American work colleagues, Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong. Just two
days after the kidnapping video footage showed Kenneth and the two others
kneeling in front of a Tawhid and Jihad banner released by Islamic extremists.
The demands made were that all the men would be killed in 48 hours unless all
female Iraqi prisoners were freed. Tragically, both of the Americans were
beheaded within 3 days, but Bigley was kept alive for two weeks. During these
two weeks a second video of Bigley was released on 22nd September and a third
on 29th September. Despite the efforts to save him after the first broadcast on
18th September, Bigley was beheaded on 7th October 2004 and it is in this time
period in which the British press made the moral decisions they did.
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Values motivate human action; indeed a British broadcaster agrees not to

show any extreme scenes of violence in accordance with Ofcom regulatory rule
1.11. However, this does not mean that scenes of violence do not happen on the
streets of Britain. In the case of the Kenneth Bigley videos, the values are divided
between promoting terrorist propaganda material through broadcasting the
videos and respecting the family and friends of Mr Bigley through not
broadcasting. It seems that in reality even if the newscasters were to stick to
strong moral values in such situations, once news of a savage execution breaks,
it can be assumed that viewers who are so inclined, will seek out ‘the gore’
themselves. In the 2002 The News and Media Law report it was claimed that ‘a
number of phone-in callers said that they went out of their way to find these
websites, and watch these beheadings’ [The News and Media Law, 2002b, 44]

The ethical principles of both Kant’s deontological theory and Aristotle’s

virtuous theory can be applied to the Kenneth Bigley case. If we apply Kant’s
categorical imperative then the newscasters would have broadcast the videos
and eventual death on the grounds that it would be showing the truth, albeit in
all its gruesome forms. The virtuous ethics synonymous with Aristotle, however,
would have not broadcast the footage, viewing the videos as morally
incomprehensible and as promoting violence as the correct way to conduct
political business. Both of these viewpoints offer very different outcomes and as
this demonstrates, principles do not always provide a clear-cut answer. In the
case of Angelo de la Cruz, a Filipino hostage, Al Jazeera, the Qatar based news
organisation broadcast the distressing hostage video of Miss Cruz to the world.
As a result the President withdrew Filipino troops from Iraq and Miss Cruz was
freed, ethically debatable, but the outcome saved many lives.

Newscasters claim to adhere to principles of impartiality, and using

Aristotle’s virtuous ethics, it would seem that present day television producers
and journalists find this very challenging. This is especially true when there are
hundreds if not thousands of cases where the Iraqi people have been subject to
brutal treatment at the hands of coalition forces. If we are applying Aristotle’s
golden mean, then surely broadcasters have a duty to show both sides of the
war, and not just what Keeble refers to as the ‘war journalism’ that highlights
such things as gruesome beheadings subjected to British and coalition forces.
The independent website www.aliveinbaghdad.com provides weekly news
updates in regards to grassroots activity in Iraq. There are several stories listed
on this website that could be broadcast in the UK, and are worthy of the viewers
attention.

A case in point was demonstrated in April 2007, when the US forces built a
wall surrounding the town of Adhamiya in Iraq to protect its citizens from
sectarian attack. Neither the citizens nor the Iraqi parliament were consulted
about this construction; indeed when a referendum was held, 99% of the vote
was against the idea. The wall left the town without oil, food and gas for a week
and while the price of food increased five fold, severe cases of violence were
reported. This story was not presented on the news however and no official
would comment on it, extremely ironic especially given the fact that the then
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republican presidential candidate, Fred Thompson said “all indications are good“
[Thompson, 2007, Online].

Arguably, newscasters need to be impartial and British centric news

should prevail. Nonetheless, all sides of the war need to be reported, however
gruesome. Indeed Al Jazeera broadcasts horrific content from both coalition and
Iraqi forces precisely because it wants to portray the war in the most truthful
way possible. Al Jazeera’s standpoint in regards to the broadcasting of wartime
deaths is that they ‘don’t want to be in a position where they are notifying the
next of kin’ [Koppel, 2003, 93] but they do want to report the news as it
happens. In questioning newscasters’ principles, the British press acquired the
Kenneth Bigley footage from Al Jazeera, again ironic as they are so quick to
criticize gruesome news content. Indeed writing an article in The Observer just a
few weeks after the death of Margaret Hassan and Kenneth Bigley, Jason Burke
wrote ‘the intense competition between groups for airtime and attention goes
some way to explaining the savagery of the acts committed to film by insurgent
groups’ [Burke, 2004, Online]. Professional UK broadcasters are not looking for
new viewers though, and so it is crucial to asses the last area of the Potter Box
Model of Reasoning to see what decision should be made.

Loyalties are without doubt the most important section of the Potter Box
Model because it determines why the news broadcasters made the decisions
they did. One might ask what is more important: the welfare of the viewers or
the welfare of those involved in the broadcast. The broadcasters had to consider
‘subscribers and viewers, sources of information, politicians, ethnic minorities
represented, children law enforcement personnel, judges and lawyers...’.
[Christians et al., 2005, 6] At least two of the three videos that the British media
received were taken from or purchased by Al Jazeera. The question of loyalties
ultimately lies with the consumer. However, it is fair to say that if a video of
Bigley is shown where he is distressed, and in essence there are no new
developments, then it can be argued that a newscaster is not being disloyal to
the viewer, because there is nothing ‘newsworthy’ to see. Furthermore, actually
showing Bigley being beheaded is not hiding the truth from the viewer; indeed
the news can be broken using minutes before the execution. A case in point was
in regards to the hanging of Saddam Hussein in December 2006. The execution
was not shown and yet the news broke worldwide. If viewers were so inclined to
view the execution of Bigley and Saddam, then in most cases they were free to
view them online with ease. Mainstream media platforms do not hold the
privilege of monopolizing the presentation of news, but with this said they must
act with loyalty and compassion to the viewers they have.

The question of censorship is one that is fraught with ethical and moral
questions. If newscasters do censor, they run the risk of effectively ‘covering up’,
or lying about the reality of what has happened to the captives, and in doing so
would be undermining the importance and effectiveness of British military
security in Iraq. Indeed, the effectiveness of media black outs in this day and age
are questionable. In December 2007 when Prince Harry was deployed in
Helmand Province, for example, Keeble writes that ‘8 days after Harry had been
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deployed, the Ministry of Defence received a call from the US broadcast channel,
saying they were planning to run the story’. In actuality, he continues, ‘….an
Australian women’s magazine first leaked the story on 7 January’. [2001, 241].
In fact it was the Drudge Report that revealed the story to the world at large on
28th February. Although the media black out of this story was treated as high
priority, it only in fact lasted 8 weeks and this demonstrates the point that any
story that is subjected to a media black out will inevitably be leaked for the
global network to read about.

Showing beheadings could also play to the immoral masochist, sadistic

and/or voyeuristic nature of some viewers. Perhaps fortunately, there is one area
that has to be approved before any video is broadcast at all, and that area is
legality, however tenuous its links may be to underlying ethical principles.
Journalists have to ensure that the people portrayed in the video clip are not
being damaged by inaccurate and malicious information or defamation.
Defamation is considered to be one of the most serious journalistic faux pas and
separating fact from comment is seen as a dangerous game. The facts displayed
in the video must be true and the news commentary must be based on facts or
allegations made in legally privileged contexts. Fair comment provided in the
context of the public interest is encouraged; in other words, the public deserve
cognitivism.

Interestingly, in the UK the Internet is seen as a defamation haven. A

notable case is that of Dr Laurence Godfrey [Crook, 2009, 53] who successfully
sued Demon Internet because it had failed in practice to ‘remove a fake message
in a news-group allegedly written by him’ (Godfrey Vs Demon Internet LTD High
Court 2001). It is important to note that the Internet Service Provider or ISP,
Demon, was unable to use the 1996 Defamation Act because Demon had kept
the message on the internet for ten days after his request for removal.

The significance of the Demon Vs Godfrey case is that there is no way the
internet can be regulated (in the UK as least) and so if a terrorist hostage video
is leaked or broadcast online then surely internet content in general is beyond
claiming that it is authentic and original. Furthermore, if content is beyond trust
and credibility, how can there be any liability for defamation? Legally then, it was
essential that the news broadcasters were certain that it was Kenneth Bigley on
the video tape. Once this has been confirmed, ethical decisions become the most
significant. As the Demon Vs Godfrey case shows, once the video is on the
internet, the law becomes very hard to administer, but newscasters still have to
stick to the law and Ofcom regulations!

To conclude, some positives can come out of broadcasting terrorist

hostage videos: it can increase chances of hostages being kept alive, and
political injustices are brought to light. Conversely, some bad can come from it
too, extending emotional agony and giving terrorists the oxygen of publicity. It is
perhaps with some disdain that one must conclude that once legal aspects are
addressed, loyalty to the rights to information of viewers, as expressed by Potter,
must be the deciding factor. Ethics plays a large part in the decision to
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broadcast, but in today’s world of moral complexities, producers cannot solely

rely on ethics alone, and they must look towards the freedom of expression, and
viewer demand. With this said, newscasters cannot dismiss their responsibility
for quality programming by arguing that they merely give the public what it
wants.

Bibliography
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Christians, Clifford et al. (2005) Pages 6, 10, 12 ‘Media Ethics: Cases and Moral
Reasoning’Pearson Publishing

Crook, Tim (2010) Pages 53, 156, 157, 166 ‘Comparative Media Law and
Ethics’ Routledge

Cunningham, Stanley (2004) Page 10 ‘Journal of Mass Media Ethics’

Day, Louis (2000) ‘Ethics in Media Communications: Cases and Controversies’

Kant, Immanuel (1964) page 71 in ‘Groundwork of Metaphyscis of Morals’ New

York: Harper Tourchbooks

Keeble, Richard (2001) pages 241, 243 ‘Ethics for Journalists’ Routledge in the
2009 print edition

Koppel, Ted (2003) page 93 ‘Deciding what images to show’ Nieman Reports

Online Source - from the website - http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/09/24/an-in-

depth-look-at-the-wall-in-adhamiya/

Online Source about Fred Thompson, the presidential candidate -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/22/fred-thompson-iraq-war-
_n_77975.html

Online Source written by Jason Burke –

http://www.gurdian.co.uk/theobserver/2004/nov/21/features.review7