Middle East battles show media hypocrisy

Ethical standards and policies often vary among news outlets. But one rule of thumb that’s fairly consistent in this industry is avoiding showing dead bodies. You may see a body bag being carried or a sheet-covered body on gurney or even a hand or a foot of a victim. But you’ll rarely see an actual dead body on American television. That is, unless the victim is not from America. It’s a double-standard I’ve never understood, and one that keeps popping up, especially during the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Back in 1993, two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia. The ensuing fight killed 18 American servicemen, some of the bodies dragged through the streets as a sign of defiance. The images of the desecration of those bodies were caught on camera and broadcast around the world. There was outrage not only at the act itself, but that media outlets would show the battered corpses of Americans at all. That outrage was understandable. But it was also hypocritical.

Think back just two years before the Battle of Mogadishu and Operation Desert Storm. It was not uncommon during the war and in media coverage documenting it since to see the bodies of dead Iraqis, especially soldiers. I have vivid memories of shots of an Iraqi convoy attacked on a desert road and the charred bodies resembling unwrapped mummies still sitting in the burned-out vehicles. Apparently American TV viewers don’t have a problem with seeing dead Iraqis.

Nor, apparently, do we have a problem seeing mangled bodies being pulled from wreckage of attacks and natural disasters around the world. In just the last few years you have likely seen the bodies of Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians laid out in bloody sheets in the streets after bombings and other attacks. You’ve probably seen the victims of genocide in Rwanda thrown into mass graves, the bloated, water-logged bodies of tsunami victims in Thailand, dead children dragged out of the ruins of a collapsed school after last year’s earthquake in China.

There is no doubt the images are disturbing and add an effect to the story, but why do we as media outlets show them. And why as viewers do you not protest? I guarantee that if we treated victims of crime, violence or natural disasters in this country like that, there would be a huge uproar. After Hurricane Katrina the news networks showed some shots of bodies floating in Gulf Coast flood waters. Now imagine if they had zoomed in showed a body face up. Imagine if the next time someone were murdered in our area if we brought you graphic video showing the victim and his or her fatal wounds. Shortly after September 11, 2001, most broadcast outlets agreed to stop showing video of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers because of the trauma, instead using still photos. At least they never showed the mangled bodies and body parts pulled from the wreckage.

You could argue that we don’t do it because there’s the chance someone might know the victim of a terror attack in New York or a natural disaster in Louisiana. But the way things are now, is there not the chance that a native Palestinian living in the US could see his brother or friend laying among the dead in Gaza?

Undoubtedly we have created a double-standard with no full or proper explanation. And I can tell you having worked in several newsrooms, it’s not a double-standard we as journalists industrywide typically try to explain. We get video from a nameless foreign correspondent, and we just go with it. Meanwhile we all know not to shoot video of a body in our area even if we have a chance. Why? Because it will never make air. Why? Because that would be just offensive and gratutious.