TV plans tasteful coverage of Saddam execution

[deminks]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061229/tv_nm/saddam_dc_1

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Television networks face a killer of a conundrum with the impending execution of Saddam Hussein, whose hanging could be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV.

Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.

"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.

Judging by the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be a gruesome affair. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.

ABC and CBS said they wouldn't air the full execution if the video became available.

(end snips)

I have a feeling Smirky will be watching by whatever means is available.

[Lowell]

1. Who will be the sponsors?

Budweiser?

[shain from kane]

6. You're stretching it now.

[Richard D]

9. And . . .

. . . what will the logo's and theme song be?

[JackintheGreen]

23. "Hangman" by the Smothers Brothers

Hangman, hangman slack your rope
Hangman, hangman slack your rope
Slack it 'fore I GARRRGGHHHHHH....

as long as we're being tasteful

[shain from kane]

12. Then again, it could be scheduled for Superbowl halftime, but that's

more than 30 days away.

[burythehatchet]

2. Are you kidding?

I can only imagine the party in the basement of the West Wing. Gannon is going to be booked solid for the evening and well through the next day. Even Condi won't be allowed in.

[question everything]

3. "Tasteful" and "execution" is an oxymoron

No TV for me for the next few days.

Not even "Charlie Brown New Year" - or something, since I know that there will be "tasteful" promotions for "News at 11."

[malaise]

5. Bingo

I have no intention of watching this lynching. Just say No to this crap.

[MnFats]

10. agreed. this is utter barbarism....but you know a bit of tape will turn up..

...within days, maybe hours, of the precise moment of execution....
sickness....

[izzie]

4. Maybe it should be on Masterpiece theater? By Mobil?

Surely a class show.

[Taverner]

7. Oxymoron "Tasteful....execution"

There's absolutely nothing tasteful about broadcasting an execution.

That's because there's absolutely nothing tasteful about executions period.

I hope to God this does get broadcast so people get a taste for what death is all about, and may not be so quick to execute.

[bluerum]

8. Leave it to media-corp to step up to the plate. What ghoulish whores. nt

[DBoon]

11. obligatory 1984 quote

'Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?' said
Syme.
'I was working,' said Winston indifferently. 'I shall see
it on the flicks, I suppose.'
'A very inadequate substitute,' said Syme.
His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. 'I know you,'
the eyes seemed to say, 'I see through you. I know very well
why you didn't go to see those prisoners hanged.' In an
intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He would talk
with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids
on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of
thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the
Ministry of Love. Talking to him was largely a matter of
getting him away from such subjects and entangling him, if
possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he was
authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head a little
aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes.
'It was a good hanging,' said Syme reminiscently. 'I think
it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see
them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking
right out, and blue a quite bright blue. That's the detail that
appeals to me.'

[WritingIsMyReligion]

22. Or the bit about the neighbor's children kicking and screaming b/c they didn't get to see a hanging.

Don't have a copy handy, but damn, that was sick.

[Missy M]

13. When was the last time the TV networks did anything...

tastefully when it comes to gruesome news. They will carry on 24/7.

[derby378]

14. Hitler's would-be assassins were slowly strangled with piano wire

Movies were made of the executions so that Hitler could watch them in the comfort of his own home.

I see a pattern forming...

[OneBlueSky]

15. "tasteful" coverage of an execution, huh . . . I'm falling down that rabbit hole again . . .

and there's this stupid cat up in a tree with a shit-eating grin on his face . . .

[DBoon]

24. Was that a rhinoceros that ran by?

One of Eugene Ionesco’s first full-length plays, Rhinoceros demonstrates the playwright’s anxiety about the spread of inhuman totalitarian tendencies in society. Inspired by Ionesco’s personal experiences with fascism during World War II, this absurdist drama depicts the struggle of one man to maintain his identity and integrity alone in a world where all others have succumbed to the “beauty” of brute force and violence.

http://www.theatrehistory.com/misc/rhinoceros.html

Some of the most powerful theater I have ever seen.

[4nic8em]

16. Some of

us would have been much more interested in a tasteful MSM full coverage session of everything Saddam had to say during his trial.

[Uncle Joe]

17. To be followed by tasteful nude mud wrestling

with Deadye Dick and Little Jimmy Hastert!

[radfringe]

18. uhhhhhh...as long as it's tasteful,,,,

[Graybeard]

19. Their minute by minute deathwatch right now is so "tasteful"...

...they are lovin it.  

[deminks]

20. Tasteful, as in Fava beans and a nice Chianti...

while they watch.

[DearAbby]

21. Tasteful way of showing this?

Did they get to show Tim McViegh get his veins pierced, with the lethal injections? He was a terrorist who had cause great loss of life? Why would they even consider showing it, or any of it?

The low levels this media will fall too...Disgusting