ARTICLE: A LEAKED VIDEO OF WARTIME ATROCITIES RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY AND VALIDITY OF NEW MEDIA.
On Monday, the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.org ignited a media firestorm by releasing a classified video taken from the gun-sight of an American Apache helicopter during a July 2007 skirmish in Baghdad. The monochrome images show in sickening detail the helicopter’s crew unleashing bursts of machine-gun fire on a group of men, and, later, on an unmarked van that drove in to rescue survivors. The video also captures the moments before the violence, as the helicopter’s crew deliberated whether to open fire, and after, as they celebrated their kills and taunted the fallen with profanities. At least two of the dozen men who died that day were noncombatants: a Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh. When their bodies fell, they dropped press identification cards, cameras, and telephoto lenses—not weapons. Two children who had been passengers in the van were also seriously wounded.
In the official US military investigation that ensued, the soldiers involved were cleared of wrongdoing. According to a New York Timesstory, Reuters representatives were shown the gun-sight video two weeks after the killings, but the agency’s requests for copies under the Freedom of Information Act went unfulfilled.
Sadly, there seems little that is singular about this tragedy—talk of smart bombs and precision targeting aside, modern warfare remains bluntly indiscriminant. When a gunship rains bullets or bombs from the sky, they too often fall on the just and unjust alike, and those accountable will inevitably try to minimize the repercussions. There have been prior leaked videos showing such mistaken slaughter of innocents in the fog of war, and there will undoubtedly be more in the future, each eliciting feelings of nausea, rage, and shame. Technology just makes these obscenities easier to document.
Or does it? The most remarkable aspects of this still-unfolding story are how the video was obtained, how it was publicized, and the reactions that ensued. Taken together they portend how emerging tools and technologies like crowdsourcing, cloud computing, and online social networks can be used to create and control news stories. But it’s entirely unclear whether these developments will actually lead to a more accurate and agile media—or a more informed public.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Frank W. Baker on
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The history of media reporting during war reveals that often times the public cannot trust news reports at the time:
the true story of what really happens is revealed years later in retrospect. With cutbacks in traditional mainstream journalism, can we even trust the new media? I am just asking..... -
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Goble on
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Big ?, eh?
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Permalink Reply by Chris Hale on
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With the preponderance of iReporting by most major media producers it seems that there may be even more cause to questions the validity and bias of any reports. Just a thought.
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Very true - I'm all for paying for my news to get better reporting, eh?
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