The Saddam Video: Journalism or Voyeurism?

I am a political science student who cares deeply about world affairs. I may be more interested in this affair as it relates to the US than the average American, but I still represent someone who does not take pleasure in watching Saddam die, but would like to know that the execution was in fact carried out. Until I found this website, I was not aware there was a video depicting it, and I was, like the Iraqi people in the case of Uday and Qusay Hussein, wondering if he was, in fact, dead. There could be serious implications if he was not executed, and he would be a prime candidate for a cover-up. Not that I want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but because of this ordeal's high profile, I would very much like verification.

In my opinion the leaked cameraphone version carries as much journalistic merit as the official Iraqi press version. There's a reason the official video had no sound... It was because the audience began to mock Hussein as he walked to the gallows. I've seen the official version described as seeming "almost serene", yet the version with sound paints a much different picture of his last moments - and it's important, at least to me, to get as full an understanding of what actually went on.

That MSNBC and the like aren't showing the actual moment of execution is a little hypocritical, especially given their usual fare of content (your average high-speed car chase usually ends up with an horrific crash or suchlike, and all that coverage of 9/11 in realtime had footage of many people jumping out of the windows, and showed the moment the towers fell, which depicted thousands of people dieing simultaneously, yet they can't show the moment one person hangs for their crimes? It was a very sanitised death, a little shocking due to the sheer speed in which it was carried out, but then again there's a lot more shocking things shown on television day in day out. A 'viewer advisory: adult content' message before the video's airing (only in the evenings though, after the watershed) would I feel suffice.

I like to get all the facts, I'm an adult and I'll deal with it myself if I find it a bit troubling to my sensibilities. I'd rather be given the full, unedited story and have something to think about rather than only receive a partial or edited version of the recorded events and think something different (a prime example being that quote from The Guardian newspaper, which I read this morning).

If it was just a random person who had no journalistic importance relative to current events, I may well think differently (although very little phases me now, having seen nearly all of the seedier, darker sides of the web, and a somewhat regular visitor to rotten.com ogrish.com-now-liveleak.com) - but given the relevance of Saddam Hussein's execution relative to the other events currently filling our media publications, it's important to me to see the full(est) version of events possible. The Internet makes that possible, and I guess the person who took that cameraphone video (and would have placed themselves at risk in doing so, given the gravitas of the event) deserves a fair bit of credit.

You are all a bunch of wimps. How come you covered the Twin Towers?? How come you aired the space shuttle breaking up? You news guys make me sick. Maybe that is why I drooped the LA Times. We need a return to good old fashion reporters. The Truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As to the execution itself, Sadam got far better than he deserved.

As to the video, I applaud Netscape for not censoring the video, it's a newsworthy event and it would be sad if internet shock sites became the only way to get peices of news no one else would touch.

The reason it ought to be shown in the west is that I think it's important for us to confront the realities of the political decisions we, by extension as voters, make. The same reason I disagree with the censorship of combat videos from Iraq and pictures of US casualties. Now, at a time I was a strong supporter of our efforts to dispose Saddam, now I'm not so sure; but any supporter of war should be forced to confront the bloody results of their votes and the actions of their representitives.

Maybe they think it's still worth it, maybe they think it's not, but allowing the government and news media to whitewash the human cost of war makes it far to easy for us to ignore the fact real people are dying every day in Iraq.

What have our country really gained at seeing someone being put to death? I agree that he did murder many of his own countrymen -- but putting him to death has created many a more uncertainties that our nation will have to come to terms with -- like stabilizing Iraq and the rest of that region. It seems like everything our leaders touch in the name of democracy turns to crap.

Let's take the money use for war and improve the living conditions of the poor people in America. Better yet, have them pay us with oil for sending our young in the name of democracy.

The hanging videos, especially the more graphic one, serve as important a purpose outside Iraq as inside. They document an execution in an era when American authorities hide executions from the public as a matter of policy, citing the need to maintain the solemnity and dignity of capital punishment. Unfortunately, there are often obvious ulterior motives for holding executions privately: officials are concerned, rightly, that much of the public will be sickened by the the spectacle, that botched executions will be exposed, and that executioners may appear incompetent. The common practice of closing the curtain over the observation window whenever an execution is noticeably botched (documented numerous times in the United States) is particularly damning. Yet despite the common obstruction of witnesses, capital punishment in the United States is much more transparent than in Japan or Singapore, where, aside from clergy, witnesses are forbidden.

Rarely can words adequately describe an execution or other act of violence. In the case of Saddam's execution, I have not yet read any account that conveys the event nearly as well as the videos do. Even though Saddam's actual hanging was done about as competently and humanely as possible (his neck snapped immediately), the gruesomeness of the videos is evidence that ought to be considered in any debate about capital punishment. Perhaps it will even bring about significant activism against hanging in Japan, where public support for capital punishment has been very strong for over a decade, and in Singapore, where an authoritarian government does its best to keep its citizens utterly apathetic about the treatment of prisoners. Finally seeing a video of the sort of punishment that their government insists on using, even against foreigners in transit who are caught with drugs, at least a few Singaporeans will probably decide that their government is too quick to bind men and snap their necks.

The more graphic, unofficial video is also important as evidence that Iraq does not have a trustworthy judiciary. The Iraqi court that tried Saddam used transparently bad jurisprudence and attempted to usurp executive powers by declaring that the president had no real authority in capital cases. Evidence that officials tried to deceive the public about the conditions of the execution does not help their case.

I am glad the evil,@!$%# is dead finally.

Although it is news, I feel that some restrictions should have been placed on it in addition to the warning. Many times the grafic warning is just a come on to insure people will watch more closely, I feel the younger viewers would have been exposed to something too grafic. I worked for 8 years in police work and have seen the violence that poeple can do, I wish that something could be done to help curb the human "hunger" to view the violent nature that is not being curbed.

Although it is news, I feel that some restrictions should have been placed on it in addition to the warning. Many times the grafic warning is just a come on to insure people will watch more closely. I feel the younger viewers would have been exposed to something too grafic. I worked for 8 years in police work and have seen the violence that people can do. I wish that somethng could be done to help curb the human "hunger" to view the violent nature that is not being curbed

whoever filmed it with the cellphone did history justice, and they may now be in danger for doing so.

the iraqis rushed the execution through far too quickly. which is why it looked and sounded like a bunch of terrorists killing a hostage.

I guess for some people, what they view as journalism, is voyeurism. Depending on one's definition, journalism could become synonymous with voyeurism. For me, it does not really matter what "label" is used to describe the information. What is quite disturbing for me is how our society's appetite for sensationalism in every conceivable aspect of our lives has become paramount.

I agree with you that Saddam was after all, a human being. The fact that he led a despicable and sadistic life is indisputable, but to legitimize killing him as a socially and morally acceptable act only exemplifies our own pathetic disregard for humanity. I do not believe in capital punishment, whatever the circumstance. How can anyone set themselves up as judge and jury and justify taking another human's life? Killing someone does not rectify the offense nor does it change anything. A judicial system of punishment by death does not resolve the core issues of violent behavior nor does it stabilize our society. Just look at our prisons and the ever-growing population. Statistics tell us what little we have learned about punishment as a determent to crime.

Your observation on whether making or watching a death video can be considered thorough journalism or perhaps relevant public news, brings me to the rationale of uncensored media spots such as "You Tube". Their success is undeniable. The audience and participants, in numbers alone, are breath taking. People simply want to see and experience "more" of everything in an arena of extremes. They want and expect a theater of events that are more sexually and emotionally intimate. They are wildly amused by anything humiliating or socially unacceptable. Moreover, let's not forget the insatiable desire and fanaticism for graphic violence in today's interactive video games, of which one's imagination is the only boundary.

I can appreciate one's curiosity and the excitement of exploration into the unknown, but this new intensity for the unexpected, and the propensity toward extraordinary extremes, brings with it a certain depravity that will assuredly have an adverse influence on the most fundamental elements of our human spirit and social conscience.