Web site killings raise dilemmas for media

Samia Nakhoul

DUBAI: A terrified-looking man, rocking back and forth in his chair with his hands tied behind his back, appeals to the United States to leave Iraq and spare him death. Then a hand with a knife appears to slice off his head.

"If we don't (leave Iraq), everyone is gonna be killed in this way ... I have been offered for exchange for prisoners here in Iraq," said the man, who identified himself as Benjamin Vanderford, 22.

One news organization after another filed the story, only to find out later from the mother of the "computer savvy" man, that it was a hoax.

It showed how almost anyone can use the Internet to manipulate and frighten people and added to growing uncertainty over the credibility of Web sites or their use by Islamist groups as a terror platform.

The video of this apparently staged killing used the graphic format and same logo seen in previous tapes of beheadings released by al Qaeda-linked militant groups.

Vanderford, an American from San Francisco, said he staged the beheading using fake blood and began distributing the videotape on the Internet months ago. "It was part of a stunt, but no one noticed up until now," he said.

Web sites which appear to be regularly used by Islamist militants often post videos of kidnappers with foreign hostages at gunpoint.

Statements by shadowy groups pop up. Style and format is imitated from site to site and news organizations face the hard choice of authenticating them or at least judging what credibility if any to give them.

The most problematic to authenticate are the grisly beheadings of hostages, such as the execution last month of 12 Nepalese workers kidnapped in Iraq.

The perpetrators proudly displayed on an Islamist Web site a video accompanied with photos of their victims taken from all angles, splattered with blood, with bullet wounds in the head and back. One gunman held the severed head of one hostage aloft.

MEDIA FRENZY

Some observers accuse the media of unwillingly feeding this frenzy of brutal terror by reporting their gruesome acts.

"Nobody needs to watch this. This is not human. By reporting these beheadings the media are giving kidnappers a chance to show their terror movies, but if they boycott such footage they would deny them this opportunity," says Saudi Internet expert Fares bin Hazem.

Some analysts say Web sites, Arab satellite television channels and even news agencies have become tools playing into the hands of Islamists by allowing them to instill fear and set the news agenda with their threats and ultimatums.

"Media all over the world hang on the kidnappers' every word, amplifying their message and handing them a victory far greater than the direct impact of their brutal acts," said Richard J. Eisendorf, president of International Media, Development, Peacebuilding Consulting in Washington.

"Whether their objectives of turning people and governments against their involvement in Iraq are furthered or not through this attention, the terrorists feel that they have achieved a victory. Thus, the coverage reinforces the continued use of their murderous tactics," he wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star.

Some believe media organizations need to draw up a new code of ethics to counter the goals of Islamist groups and deny them the publicity to threaten and terrorize.

"Feeding a tape based on the brutal sacrifice of a human being is beyond irresponsible. It abets the murders. It clearly leads to more kidnappings and brutal deaths," Eisendorf added.

"If since the start of the kidnapping campaign in Iraq the media banned airing any of the captor's videos and statements they would have been discouraged and given up. But with this media mobilization they see the strong reactions and they think that they are succeeding," Hazem added.

PUBLIC BRUTALITY

A French journalist taken hostage earlier this year in Iraq said his kidnappers were perplexed when they failed to get publicity for their action. "They kept asking me why I wasn't (appearing) on television," he was quoted as saying.

While news organizations depend on witness accounts, reporters in the field and their own sources for news, analysts agree the Internet, which does not filter information, poses new challenges for media organizations to use their judgment.

"The Internet has opened up the media to new sources of news, including terrorists," Professor William Dutton, Director of Oxford Internet Institute said. "It is good news and bad news. I don't see a practical way of blocking that coverage.

Some experts argue that censorship would breach the democratic values of journalism and that accounts and photographs of brutality of war were centuries-old.

"They (Islamists) know that the Western media cannot censor news so they are using these values of journalism against us. They are intelligently using the media in ways we have not anticipated to serve their interests," Dutton said.

Like many, Dutton believes that such brutal publicity would backfire.

"They may get coverage but they are shooting themselves in the foot. People see their brutal means and the evil of what is being done. It may capture public attention but it will backfire on them because it creates public revulsion," he said.