The Saddam Video: Journalism or Voyeurism?

I find the entire drum-head trial and execution of a little tinpot pawn in The Great Game a watershed act of barbarism unworthy of any self-respecting species. Despicable beyond expression.

I think it's morbid that people are taking pleasure from seeing a man die. Whatever he may have done in his lifetime, it says a lot about people when they actually take pleasure from watching a fellow human being die. I use the phrase, What has society come to?

I can understand not broadcasting the video on television, but I see nothing wrong with a news organization making the video available online. Like it or not, there is a market for it.

Putting it online gives users the option to decide whether they really want to see it, with an appropriate warning, of course. The media should be facilitating our news gathering, not obstructing it. Raw videos are often receive the most hits on news sites. A Seattle TV station put the raw video from a fight outside a courtroom in a juvenile murder case and it's one of the most viewed videos it had ever posted.

It happened, no matter your personal feelings about it. If you don't want to see it, don't click.

I think that Saddam's execution is historically important, but that the pure fact of the number of times the video has been viewed and many of the discussions over the video makes it more voyeurism than journalism.

And I completely agreed with Smaran that it is a sad statement of society with the death of a person causes this much pleasure (it makes me ill even to attach that word). For many - too many - people who were directly affected by his horrendous acts, I can sympathize with a sort of joy that he is forever removed from the world. But it shouldn't be the joy that someone derives from an event such as watching their favorite football team win.

I don't believe in the death penalty under any circumstances. However, it appears that the execution of Saddam is important to many people in his society - and that seeing the event - or, at least, the body - is an integral part of that. If that is necessary for the Iraqis to start to heal and find some sort of peace - then I will have to stomach it. What's done is done. But for Americans and other world citizens to be watching this video simply out of lurid fascination and a disgusting desire to watch this horrible man's death disturbs me at a deep level. It is the same repulsion I feel for people who delight in sites like rotten.com or in images and videos from events like the Columbine shootings.

I have watched a televised execution - it was required for my sociology course - and it shook me and I will forever remember it. To say I regret watching it is an understatement. There is a part of me that will always feel dirty.

I understand curiosity and that this video is a great one. But I believe that individuals need to really examine what they bring into their homes and their minds.

I watched it. I think its necessary to both show proof of death, and to stop any CT's from creeping up. I think it will also be an important tool in showing the resolve and direction of Iraqis. I dont for a second regret watching it, and I think personally that our media is too sensitive to such realistic things such as death. Just my two cents. Not that I condone looping it on cable news, but people have a right to see these kinds of things should they choose to.

How many witnesses do we need? I can understand how people who survived his terrorist reign could want to see the actual hanging, but the rest of us ...

Sure people have a right, but does mankind's thirst for violence ever have boundaries? Personally I've seen enough deaths to want to witness yet another. Call me overly sensitive if it makes you feel better.

As a hospice worker I have always found the moment of death to be an extremely private and personal event and should never be exploited for the benefit of others own curiosity.
BUT! Hussein did NOT deserve a private and humane execution. He didn't deserve a humane death - which hanging him I thought was humane compared to the horror he was capable of putting people through before they died - so in my opinion making it public, allowing people to celebrate after years of torment from this person was acceptable I believe. I also think that after so many years of hearing about and watching the devastating things this man did to people - this 1 person deciding to harm and kill so many people - made the hanging a sort of surreal thing. His life of destruction was ending right at that moment and I got to witness it (altho it was after the fact I still pretty much felt like it was happening live). I also wanted to see if he was afraid. I so wanted him to be afraid and I wanted to SEE him be afraid! I do not watch nor do I want to watch someone being killed who is an innocent victim of some sort (faces of death, rotten). Even animals being killed is difficult for me. He was no victim and I felt no connection as a fellow human being like I would towards you. Any of you. I have been with many people when they have died and have felt both sadness for their families and relief for the person who had been in pain and finally escaped it. I expected some sort of feelings when it happened but I didn't. In all honesty it didn't really affect me. It didn't make me feel better and it certainly didn't make me feel any sympathy towards him ( I did feel bad when I read that one of his daughters had been very upset about this entire ordeal). Just because someone watches this does not mean it is necessarily for the pleasure of simply watching someone die. There are probably a few issues surrounding their choice that you obviously did not have and that is fine. But I don't believe I am sick for wanting to see this monster go.

Just for the record tho - I do believe that he should not have been executed. He should have been left to sit alone and forgotten about until he died naturally.

I think the video needs to be out there. It is an event of historical importance and I am for as much documentation as possible.

However, I am not going to watch it. It does not interest me in the least and I have no need to study it.

I will use this analogy, archaeologists will dig up grave sites of past civilizations to be studied. I believe this is of importance and is a need. I am just not going to volunteer to assist them.

Why does anybody even care about the fate of a Saddam?

In a world of six billion births and deaths, how can the life of a Saddam amount to that of anything more than an average living room nuisance? Even as I deal with a spider that has encroached upon my space, I mean it no harm. I even wish it well. But Saddam? What is a Saddam? Less than my spider, no doubt. Get real people. The fact that a Saddam walked upright and ostensibly possessed 46 chromosomes accords him no favor or respect. He had his opportunity to be other than a mass murderer and he squandered it. Philosophically speaking, morality is enough of a morass without troubling ourselves over the fate of a Saddam. We have better things to trouble over.

Let's put Bush on the end of a rope for his war crimes and I'll watch that.

Here in the UK we did away with public executions in 1868 however I haven't heard our glorious leader condemning this one. Too busy soaking up the sun with a Bee Gee I expect.

There is always a sense of relief when a guy like this is taken out, but what about this bunch of wild yahoos immediately after the hanging?

Most telling was the behavior of the living after the execution. Were they fighting over the corpse for a barbecue? If they were happy with their deed then why not laugh and celebrate rather than all this shouting and pushing and shoving? But the press does need to get their stories in.

The venue was rather dreary and probably not even catered. Would a simple deli table with a Kosher section have been too much to ask?

And a memo to costume: lose the slanty eyed executioner masks, they are a racial slur to oriental viewers.

The last paragraph of this article made me think.

Here we are seeing 21st century psychological operations. It's hard to know who is directing this internet traffic, but it can be concluded there were elements within America's government and/or military, working in concert with Iraq's current scarecrow power-holders, who wanted as many people as possible in the world to see Saddam hang. And from that rope hanged not just that bearded old man, but whatever was left of our culture that hasn't been degraded by the 7 years of 'leadership" we've been dragging around with us.

i think it should be shown fully on the news. its more likely to make people feel sick. maybe not the first view, but instead of becoming desensitized, the actual moment of the act is likely to make people more sensitive over time. i have watched it about 4 times, and it's now starting to make me feel sick.

the news currently gives us the consequences in a presentable way, desensitizing us. bombing from a distance is fine for news. nobody bothers about that.

i reckon seeing executions will make more people against capital-punishment, the same way people would likely become vegetarian if they saw their meal being prepared in an abattoir.

the context of the official video was also totally misleading. the sectarian shouting and behaviour of the Shi-ites present was a depressing signal.

We had to watch all his slaughter on the news,including people being shot , point blank in the head. Show everyone he is Dead................not Brutal at all....Justice finally server against a Killer of many.Brutal.

...What have we done? What level has this country stooped to by participating in such a horrific act? Can someone (Democrat or Republican) help me to understand what we've accomplished by assisting with this execution?

It is all so sad.

As I read all of these comments, it appears that all of those critical of the hanging video...watched it!

You guys project too much. You assume the viewers are receiving pleasure from the video. You assume the viewers have a morbid fascination with death. It needs to be seen by some for one reason or another. Nothing more.

What I truly hope is that all the other tyrannical dictators out there see the video and are afraid. For THAT is the purpose of a death penalty, and THAT is a good purpose for posting the video.

"The question of whether to allow the video on Netscape was an interesting one for me since, as some of you know, I work there. That particular decision fell solely to the General Manager ... "

So this stuff on Netscape is selective?? I've seen so much leftist bilgewater there the past few months that I figured anti-U.S. was the only criterion.

As a person opposed to capital punishment, I abhor any state-sponsored killing. However, if executions are the norm, then I am strongly in favor of publicly broadcasting ALL executions, not only for infamous individuals like Saddam, but for all of them.

I believe that the so-called majority of Americans who favor capital punishment would be severely diminished if people actually had to view electrocutions, hangings, and lethal injections.

People who eat meat don't want to see how that meat got to their plate...or how that veal came to be. They just want the food. Imagine the reduction in meat and chicken consumption were people forced to watch how cows are raised and then slaughtered; pigs squealing as they watch their siblings ahead of them being killed; and chickens having their beaks hot-wired off to keep them from pecking other chickens... etc...
The same holds true for all forms of capital punishment. Do we REALLY want to see someone's head fry? Would you feel the same way about killing if you had to watch the foam spill from someone's mouth as they succumb to lethal injections (or take 34 minutes to die, as happened last week).

We in the USA are one of the few countries in the world that kills people, who kill people, to teach people that killing is wrong... What a dichotomy.

I support public broadcast as required viewing, though I have a vision in my head of beer-guzzling idiots gathered round the tube, whooping and hollering in drunken joy while fixated to every detail of execution much like Romans did while entranced by the gladiators in the Colosseum.

Execution is NOT a deterrent.. it is simply revenge.

The only responsible of news media is to report the truth, all of the truth.

The cowards did not dare to unmask their face.

This is a farce ever in human history.

And, the masked men, chanting Sadr, were n0t friends of Bush.

What an imperfect partnership.

i saw it, and it looked very similar to one of those terrorist beheading videos.

A bunch of hooded men rounding up near the victim, taunting him, and then hanging him brutally.

it was so disorganized, complete lack of respect. The fact that they did this on Eid has angered a lot of sunni muslims, especially those who are doing the Hajj this year.

I really wish he would be spending his life away in jail. A Saddam behind bars for over 20 years would be a much better turnout.

Killing Saddam is not making Iraq any safer.

Saddam's execution should have been broadcast live and aired on pay-per-view to help defray the cost of the war he allowed brought on his people. How long did this pariah dictator defy the United Nations and disregard his own accountability on a world stage? The execution made public sends a clear message and promotes the justice carried out by the Iraqi people,

I wish the elitists would stop denouncing humans. The fact of the matter is is that humans, by nature, are curious. Most people outside of the middle east have never even see someone die outside of a movie, let alone an execution. The fact that books, videogames, television, and even history books mention these and describe the significance is going to create curiosity. I see nothing wrong with it. You can't expect people to be told their whole lives about hangings but never really see one.