seriously underestimate its power. In short, they did not allow it, they demanded it.
It is extremely unlikely that a network would ever air more of a comparable tape, if another one were to be made available. But why not air less? Is it necessary that any of these tapes be aired for an audience to be informed? Indeed, this seems to be the direction that the networks were headed at the end of the spate of brutal executions of hostages in 2004. When Hensley was killed the next day, the video was mentioned by NBC, but no clips were aired. The question is, was the viewer ill-served when NBC subtracted the increment of information that could be gained from their watching him on the terrorist's video, as opposed to their simply hearing NBC's reporter say,
The report tonight on an Islamic Website claiming Jack Hensley, a contractor from Georgia, has been executed, the second American hostage killed in as many days.[1]
CBS mentioned the second video but did no story about it and provided no quotes from it. In that case, on September 29, 2004, Dan Rather merely says,
For the second time in a week, Al-Jazeera television has aired a disturbing video of a Briton held hostage in Iraq.
This latest video shows Kenneth Bigley in a cage, chained and weeping, begging Prime Minister Tony Blair to save his life by meeting the demands of his Iraqi captors. Blair would say only that Britain will respond immediately if the militants make contact. So far, they have not.[2]
One must again ask if the difference in what CBS's viewers learned on the two nights was so enormous as to justify the fact that on the first night CBS exposed their audience to the powerful manipulative effects
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- ↑ Ned Colt, "Another American Hostage Beheaded By Insurgents in Iraq," NBC Nightly News, September 21, 2004, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/universe/document?_m=1a3349971e33283505b7358851e75bc9&_docnum=5&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVA&_md5=cea0f35531309aeb51bc8a0e394f0b8.
- ↑ Dan Rather, "Al-Jazeera Airs Video of Kidnapped Briton Kenneth Bigley," CBS Evening News, September 29, 2004, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/universe/document?_m=a5b1f47c49f1f8f028cb06eb8cf01605&_docnum=3&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVA&_md5=1347aa597e239de945903741113f9a15.
