Saddam's 'snuff video' signals the end of editorial control

The Observer writing about the release of the unauthorized videophone footage on the internet showing Saddam' execution, puts it's finger on what has become a common occurence; mainstream media has all but lost control of what reaches the public domain.

"... Last Saturday, the media broadcast what the Iraqi government wanted shown - the original, silent, cut-before-the-drop film.

With the internet release of the videophone footage, whatever editorial control the media had initially was swept away. It showed a different story, of Saddam being mocked and humiliated in his final moments by guards chanting the name of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The Saddam video proves again that no act is too gruesome or intimate that someone won't try to take a picture of it and share it with the wired world,' said arts critic Richard Woodward in the Wall Street Journal. 'We better get used to living without visual boundaries - and with the curiosity and flexible morality of the viewer as the only limit on what we can see - from now on.'

... The visible end to a murderous dictator has one benefit: It quells theories that he escaped the reaper. - The execution of Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife Elena in 1989 by a firing squad, was broadcast on national television (and worldwide) for just this reason - Hitler's suicide was not photographed and allowed a belief in his survival to thrive for years."

Related:

-- Mobile phone captures Iraq's cruelty

-- Official held in Saddam hanging video

-- Iraq PM orders probe into Saddam cameraphone video

-- Cameraphone footage of Saddam’s Execution made its way to video sharing sites

emily | 5:37 PM | How people and businesses are using videophones |
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