Death in Iraq: News or Entertainment?

Every day viewers are bombarded by images of the War in Iraq – whether it be an in-depth story or else a brief update, coverage of the war is fairly consistent. The media is always spouting new figures of the number of most recently killed U.S. Marines or else a suicide bomber that managed to gouge out a portion of downtown Baghdad. Yet, when it comes to news coverage, whether it be images or audio, how far is too far? How much does the public have the right to know before overstepping moral boundaries?

This week in "On The Media", the commentators addressed this issue to a degree. In the article Friction Tape, they relay audio of the death of a Sergeant Leija recorded by New York Times journalist Damien Cave, who then posted the video on the paper’s website before the Sergeant’s family even knew of the video’s existence. Was this action on the part of the journalist one of blatant disregard to the deceased’s family or a social responsibility to bring the masses news? In the article, Neil Gabler from Fox News Watch commented that, “…I think that journalists have a moral responsibility to the family, obviously, to be sensitive, but they have a professional responsibility to report the news. And there is a public interest here. I don't think that families can be given veto power over the kinds of images that are shown.”

I strongly disagree with Mr. Gabler. I feel that journalists should give a much higher priority to the moral responsibility to the victim’s family than their so-called professional responsibility. Imagine being in the family’s position: having to watch your husband or father or son killed time and time again in front of millions of people simply for the sake of news, to fulfill a quota of stories a journalist needs to create in order to keep his or her job. This is a perfect example of “new news”: corporations know that death sells, and they will capture its event at any cost without regard to the family’s pain and loss. Sergeant Leija’s death was simply an opportunity to sensationalize a story in order to boost the rate of readers for more revenue. Sadly, this method succeeds due to the fact that we live in a nation that thrives off of tragedy and pain, once it does not affect us personally. The mass media simply uses this addiction to increase their own profit and maintain the endless cycle. In this instance, I feel that broadcasting the Sergeant’s death strips away the important reasons as to why he was killed, and warps his death into pure entertainment. To preserve the legitimate memory of Sergeant Leija, I thoroughly believe that his family should have had a say as to whether or not his last moments could be shown to the world.