About a week ago, CNN aired some powerful footage taken by Iraqi insurgents. You can find the footage here. [1]

The video is chilling. It was taken from a car in which Iraqi snipers were sitting, chatting and waiting for the moment to pick off American soldiers.

When they do fire a shot, the video “fades to black.” But the audio remains and one can hear the snipers congratulating themselves saying “Allahu akhbar (God is great).”

The video was shown on local Iraqi broadcasts and according to CCN, was obtained through a local intermediary who was able to get a copy of the video.

Shortly after airing the footage, CCN was criticized strongly by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Cal). Congressman Hunter represents California’s 52^nd District, which consists of eastern and northern San Diego County. In Washington, DC, he sits as chairman of the House Armed Service Committee.

Congressman Hunter was quoted by the Associated Press as calling for CNN to have its press credentials lifted. He said in a letter to the Pentagon that CNN has now served as “the publicist for an enemy propaganda film featuring the killing of an American soldier.”

The letter was also signed by San Diego-area Republican congressmen Darrell Issa and Brian Bilbray.

“This is nothing short of a terrorist snuff film,” Bilbray said at a press conference held in San Diego.

The AP quoted CNN producer David Doss writing in a Web log that the network televised the footage in an effort to present the “unvarnished truth” about the Iraq war.

CNN officials defended their decision to air the footage.

“Our responsibility is to report the news,” said Laurie Goldberg, a CNN spokeswoman. “As an organization we stand by our decision and respect the rights of others to disagree with it.”

When asked by the Copley News Service about whether CCN should have aired the footage, I agreed with CNN. [See the article here.] [2] Americans, it seems to me, have a right to know what U.S. troops are enduring these days in Iraq. The footage, it seems to me, is neither pro nor anti-war, but a horrifying depiction of daily life for the troops.

But that provoked an email to the CCJ website from Mr. Jeff Pace:

CCJ Executive Director, Jeffrey Dvorkin, is quoted in the press as supporting CNN's decision to broadcast the sniper attack on US troops. Would CCJ also support showing operating table deaths during surgery? I suppose that would be OK if we fade to black just before our family member expires as medical professionals make a frenzied effort to save his or her life.

Not the same as the CNN footage? Why not? I say the public needs to see the real risk involved in surgical procedures.

Asinine, of course, as is your support for airing the murder of a GI, someone's father, husband, wife, son. What CNN, and you, are looking for here, is an image with which to hammer the public toward a point of view-- this war's coffins arriving at Dover. How low will American journalism go?

I would disagree with Mr. Pace.

There is a huge difference here.

The sniper story shows an American audience just what the military is going through as a consequence of foreign policy. One can be pro-war or anti-war, but the danger that our troops are going through is the result of deliberate decisions made in Washington and the public has a right to know that.

Showing someone dying on an operating table is terrible because of what that person means to his or her loved ones. To show that death on television would be a huge intrusion into a family’s personal grief and nothing more than pure voyeurism.

So with all due respect to Mr. Pace, the fighting and dying that is going on in Iraq has other implications in addition to the death of an individual soldier. On the operating table, there are no policy implications.

Both deaths are tragic, but for very different reasons. There are important journalistic reasons to show one, and not the other.

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