in extremis. That attitude is balanced against the news value of the given image, and while there was never a chance that the actual execution would be aired, (since it is literally impossible to imagine a news value that would justify using that image to producers—or convince them that their audiences would accept such an image being aired), it left open the question of what precisely would be shown. And yet all the networks opted for almost precisely the same image, give or take an additional second of footage.
NBC Nightly News and ABC's World News Tonight stopped the tape just as the killer drew his knife, while The CBS Evening News went a bit further, showing the killer grab Berg by his hair, slam him to the ground and put the knife to his neck. "I just think you really need to let people see as much as they can in a judicious way," CBS Evening News producer Jim Murphy said after the broadcast. "By showing even that little bit, you got a better sense of what some very bad people are willing to do to Americans." Both MSNBC and CNN stopped short of showing the knife being brandished. But Fox News—after not showing it throughout the day—did so by Tuesday night.[1]
Hostage videos come in a well-defined sequence, and although it is certainly possible for any or several steps in the sequence to be missing, and it is also possible for multiple videos to appear at several of these steps. The point is that videos will not be released out of order. First will come a video to prove that a particular group does indeed hold a particular victim. It is video that is used to establish the validity of the claim that hostages are being held. Thus, for example:
Good morning, Gretchen. Well, this appears to be the first confirmation of the hostage taking. The men were kidnapped at dawn last Thursday from a house here in Baghdad.
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- ↑ Peter Johnson, "A Death Caught on Tape: Should It Run or Not?" USA Today, May 12, 2004, p. 4-D, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/universe/document?_m=de45ce18111dbc86cb3c50934f5f4ba8&_docnum=17&wchp=dGLbVlb-zSkVA&_md5=26e9ec69bab8723707ebd2b670132c49.