Baltimore Sun: TV stations, Web sites exercise little restraint
By David Zurawik and Nick Madigan
Sun reporters
Originally published June 9, 2006
As happened with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad, some American news organizations yesterday covered the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with marked enthusiasm, verging on inappropriate glee.
Perhaps the tone was set by the cheering and sustained applause by Iraqis at the Baghdad news conference announcing al-Zarqawi's death. But American television didn't have to follow that gung-ho lead to the extent that some channels did throughout the day.
The 24-hour cable news channels and their Web sites were the worst offenders, though other news organizations shared that lack of proportion and restraint....
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On Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, anchorman Chris Wallace said of al-Zarqawi, "This is the baddest man in the world - we shouldn't forget that."...(Visitors to CNN's website) were urged to play video of the bombing run that killed al-Zarqawi, with U.S. Gen. George W. Casey's voice walking them through the landscape: "The lead aircraft is going to engage
momentarily with a 500-pound bomb on the target." It was the most-played video of the day at www.cnn.com.
"I think it's important for the American media not to turn this into a Star Search kind of a thing where you have one super-celebrity in al-Zarqawi and you make a huge deal out it, when the fact is that the insurgency is so much more complicated," said Philip Seib, author of Beyond the Front Lines: How the News Media Cover a World Shaped by War....
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.media09jun09,0,3053980.story?coll=bal-news-nation