82 thoughts on “Beyond Satire”

    1. Don Pidgeoni

      Or out of respect for the dead? Or to not give the gunmen want they want? Same as should be done with any IS beheading video, showing it is what they want

      1. Janet

        I’d like to think respect. If that was my husband , brother or father I wouldn’t want it plastered everywhere.

          2. Don Pidgeoni

            They are going to have to report it anyway, otherwise they are get it in the neck as well, but why not do it in a slightly sensitive way? Instead of 24hr loops of the same thing (like Alan Henning’s video).

          3. JimmytheHead

            Sorry if im being insensitive but cant understand how watching an (edited and blurred by the way) video of a murder is in any way morally superior to reading Peters detailed narrative of what he saw.

            As Reppy said below, just more of the IT’s typical click-bait

          5. Don Pidgeoni

            True, the piece is more graphic than it needs to be. I thought they make take the chance to be a little more careful in this.

  2. Spaghetti Hoop

    So the IT are reporting on content which they have decided not to publish. Why mention it at all then?
    It just portrays a giddy excitement about a graphic level of media which they want to be a part of but not associated with.

    1. Miss Carroll

      Not sure I agree with you on this. I think that the fact these guys shot a policeman in the head (while he was cowering on the ground) is newsworthy – as in it is part of this story. However, the decision not to publish it could be out of respect for the dead policeman, or because they don’t generally show videos of people being murdered, or because, well it’s their website & they make the editorial calls they want. I don’t think shows giddy anything.

          1. GG

            So report about the news! Don’t say there’s a video out there, here’s a screenshot, here is exactly what it shows… ohh but yeah, we’re on some sort of moral high ground and are making a point.

            If they really were doing this out of respect, then don’t talk about the video and how it “won’t be difficult to find”

  3. Reppy

    It’s readily available to watch on plenty of other sites. Typical click-bait post from IT similar to those “you won’t believe what happened next” nonsense posts written in the text to get you off facebook and on to their site. Unfortunately this one is real and it does not make for easy watching

  5. Caroline

    Could they not have posted a video of Murtagh’s reaction to it?

    Really see the horror creeping into his eyes, frame by frame. Pause at the exact point his face crumples as he realises the type of creatures he shares humanity with.

    I like my thrills properly vicarious.

  6. phil

    Some people think that showing the full unedited barbarity of these terrorist actions , would be far more effective in turing other people away from the terrorists so called cause …

    IMO it would be traumatic for the viewers and the bereaved , Im not sure how to balance that. Personally I just wont go looking for the video …

      1. Spaghetti Hoop

        They’ve already promoted it without showing it, and getting grief (here)…. for teasing.
        Dipping their toes in yet exclaiming that they’re staying well out of the water.

        1. Don Pidgeoni

          I’m sure it would be the same people moaning about how they had shown it and how dare they

          1. Starina

            they could have not shown it and then not described it either. they’re trying to profit off the video without getting their hands dirty — an impossible task.

      2. Sam

        I think there are actually laws in Ireland about the showing or broadcasting of the moment of death.
        Can’t recall which statue it is at the moment.

  9. Kieran NYC

    Since BS are so sneery about the IT not posting the video, are they going to post it here?

    1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

      I don’t think they’re sneery about the IT not posting it, just sneery about the way in which they didn’t post it.

  10. Dylan

    It’s like giving to charity and then telling everyone about how you just gave to charity. Either way they are still trying to get attention and kudos off the back of a dead man.

  11. Selfie Sensation

    Isn’t this exactly what a Mainstream Newspaper is for? Reporting on things that have happened? the Media’s job is to do more than merely serve up videos and content and tell their readers to go ahead and male sense of it as best they can. Rather they must make editorial decisions on how they present the news and reports.

    As stated by the Times themselves there are countless sites that are providing the video, it is their decision not to do so but it is still newsworthy and should be part of their coverage of today’s awful events in Paris. Had they presented the video, no doubt there would be many of the same commentators condemning the times for publishing what they would no doubt describe as a snuff video.

  12. Ms Piggy

    A further complication/irony to this is that (I would guess) that French TV will show it. French and other continental TV news has a very different attitude to showing footage of injuries, war-zones etc from Anglophone news conventions. They believe that this is the reality, this is what bombs, guns etc do to bodies and therefore people should see it. Being raised in the Anglophone tradition I must admit I’ve recoiled from the screen a few times when watching French news, but intellectually I think they’re probably right. Perhaps people would be less willing to support bombing campaigns by their own governments if they had ever actually seen what those bombs do to people, for example? Anyway, in this context my point is that the policeman’s friends and family in Paris will almost certainly see that footage, while the IT is protecting….who, exactly?

  14. guy bague

    And a d1ckhead like Ciaran to comment on it without offering condolences. No empathy from the snide.

  15. Little Lord Fauntleroy

    Plus ça change. Broadsheet seeks to censor freedom of speech at the Irish Times…. Lives and loved ones lost in Paris for naught?

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