by the White House and not their own staff, their readers have a way, with very little effort, of discovering that. If network news divisions feel they have no alternative to taking visual product from insurgent websites, just as they sometimes have no alternative to taking visual imagery from DoD (or the White House) because no other images are available, then they owe their viewers transparency: the audience needs a way to know where the images came from, and who produced them. Why would that be necessary if the images were produced by DoD but not necessary if they were produced by the nation's enemies?
Perhaps more important than the fact that the footage has been shot by these groups is that they are all edited by terrorists and insurgents, even if they are then edited again by network personnel. It is propaganda material, not news footage, or else the very idea of a difference between the two has no meaning whatsoever. As Ben Venzke articulates it, the "videos are a form of follow-on psychological attack on the victims and societies the group is targeting. They are designed to amplify the effects of attacks …"[1] Hoffman writes about terrorist use of the web generally, rather than about these segments specifically, but gives an assessment that is clearly applicable here:
It [the web] also enables terrorists to undertake what Denning has termed "perception management": in other words, they can use it to portray themselves and their actions in precisely the light and context they wish—unencumbered by the filter, screening, and spin of established media. The internet also facilitates their engagement in what has been referred to as "information laundering," taking an interesting or provocative video clip and/or sound bite, and featuring it and focusing on it and creating an "internet buzz" about it in the hope that it will move into the mainstream press.[2]
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