Disgusted at BBC using image of dead Gadaffi on hompeage

[Reveller]

I am disgusted at the BBC for using image of dead Colonel Gadaffi as it's leading image on the BBC News homepage.

I had thought of the BBC site as a family friendly place but now I know better.

Images of death are all over the place, video games of mass slaughter are one example that spring to mind.

And people like myself do their best to avoid them (I would never watch a violent film or play a violent video game) as seeing violent scenes make my ptsd flare up. End result; nightmares, vomiting, flashbacks, feeling teary. Not being able to function for days. And lots of people out there have ptsd.

There is a difference between sheltering people from every nasty thing ever and presenting the facts of a story but not displaying the most graphic photographs without warning.

I have seen lots of pictures of dead bodies on the news. I can cope if I've had a warning and feel in control of whether I go on to view those images and sometimes it is the appropriate thing to do and I am fine. This was very different. In fact this evening I've had time to digest the details and have willingly clicked on a news story where I knew there would potentially be difficult photos because I felt a bit more prepared and that I could cope. I felt just a step away from being a sobbing wreck earlier when the footage flashed up on my screen just before a family show. Nothing to do with who he was or what I feel about the situation - it was just an immensely triggering image.

Tomorrow morning's front pages are very graphic - so those of a sensitive disposition might want to avoid the newsstands in the morning....

Also as to the OP - it looks like most media outlets were guilty of same. as headfairy will probably confirm, the media tend to have a bit of a herd mentality about these things. because everyone pinged up the footage/pics asap, it was everywhere. then someone somewhere obviously had a reality check that it was not necessarily suitable and so they took the images to the next layer down - my guess would be the difference between more junior and more senior editorial decisions...

There is absolutely no need whatsoever to see pictures of his dead body at any time of day or night, on the bbc or itv or sky or on a website in order to learn that he has been killed. Have we seen pictures of Joanna Yeates' dead body?

yes, we are all going to die or lose a relative. Hopefully most of us aren't going to be murdered though, and tbh if a relative was killed in such a horrific way I wouldn't want my child to see that either.

"Images of death are all over the place, video games of mass slaughter are one example that spring to mind." and most of those have an eighteen rating.

Gaddafi is dead. That's more than news - it's history, and of course it needs to be broadcast. But we don't need the pictures to prove it.

Images of death are most certainly not all over the place i must be missing all these omnipresent graphic representations of human mortality.

Video games are not real images of real dead people.

Appalling scenes shown by Auntie today and they had no need to show them.

On the appropriateness of showing bodies - would you similarly approve the broadcast of eg executions in the US? After all, it's the real part of the justice system.

We don't know at what point Ghaddaffi died - they were broadcasting a snuff movie pre-watershed. SKY managed at least to use a much strengthened warning about it. Other broadcasters just haven't managed the same level of responsibility as SKY, and the BBC1 transmission at 6pm was particularly bad.

Whatever is decided is required in Libya, we do NOT need this shown at 6pm in UK.

I do not think showing someone dying and the parading of a corpse is appropriate pre-watershed, if you want the watershed to have any real meaning.

I'm going against the run of opinion here and saying that I don't object to the pictures being shown. Provided there is a warning that 'some people may find the following images disturbing', I think we should be treated as grown-ups and images used when appropriate. War & death is, or should be, shocking and too often it is presented in a sanitised fashion in our newspapers and TV screens. There are special reasons for showing pictures of this particular dead body that don't apply in other situations.

teejwood: good point about the level of editorial decision.

The BBC is reporting this morning about the mounting concerns about the events surrounding the capture. The realisation that they showed, at 6pm, a captive being beaten to death cannot be comfortable for them.

The trouble with the blanket warning "some people may find the following images disturbing" is that they use it for everything. They used it before showing footage of the woman shoving a cat into a wheelie bin, which is a long way off a bloody corpse.

How is his death special to the average person? It's hugely important to Libyans and anyone who's lived under that regime but to us? We only know so much about it because the media have had such comprehensive coverage of it.

We're not being shown the hundreds of dead children/families resulting from the famine and conflict on the Kenya/Sudan border, even though surely attention needs to be drawn to what's happening there.

I just don't think we need to see corpses. It's not necessary, ok, if you really want to see it, maybe on the later news, but to have it right there without any way of avoiding it is in bad taste. I'm not sensitive, I just really don't want to see dead bodies. There's enough death in real life without watching it broadcast. By the time you realise what they're showing it's too late for the 'off' switch.

"How is his death special to the average person?"

It is a significant event because it finished a multinational conflict, in which we are active participants, and an era of terrorism that killed hundreds of British people from Yvonne Fletcher, to the victims at Lockerbie, to the many who died in NI, killed by Semtex supplied by Gaddafi to the IRA. We now have conflicting statements on how he met his death and there will need to be investigations. News organisations like Al Jazeera are not squeamish about this kind of thing whereas the BBC is far more conservative. For the editors to include the picture it has to add something to the story... which I think it did.

Checked the front pages of the newspapers last night & I think every one had gone with the image. I'm fairly immune but don't want my kids seeing it. They're too young & it's too much. Going to have to avoid the shops

I didn't want my children seeing this. It was a bit too much like going to Tyburn or knitting by the guillotine for my liking. My husband is Algerian and I have no love for the Gaddafi regime but I didn't want to watch his death / summary execution? on TV.

I understand why the Libyans are celebrating his death and I can even understand why they want to show some images of his body to prove he is dead otherwise some people will deny that it has happened but my young children don't need to be exposed to it.

At least it a gave me the opportunity to talk to DS1 (aged 8) about even bad people having the right to a fair trial.

teejwood you're bang on the money there, much of the justification in the newsroom was "they're showing them on Sky, we'll look like idiots if we dont' run it".

I don't always hold with that line of thought at all.

I had the same thing on the Times website homepage I clicked onto the page and was confronted with an horrendous image. I have written to them today to complain as I switched the site of instantly yesterday and the link to write to them is on the homepage I wanted to avoid. I was very relieved that non of my kids was sat with me at that moment. The shock of seeing the image without any warning actually took my breath away I really think that the press is going to far with the images they are showing.

I agree with cognito although i dont think it should be on the google homepage.

He meted out unprecedented violence to his people and the international community. The Bulgarian nurse scandal just shows how much control he had. No one supported him, they were scared to oppose him. Look at what happened with Huda Ben Amer and countless others. He used television to frighten people and terrorise them. He encouraged people to be as violent as possible. Its not surprising they killed him the way they did and rather absurd that he ended up dying whilst being filmed and telling the people he had terrorised for years it was wrong.

Lets hope his brother in law is caught as well as his horrible son and the daughter in law who saw fit to throw boiling water on her nanny. As well as his troops and police who totured and raped for decades.

Its no wonder they dealt out so much violence.

I turned all the newspapers around in our village shop . In my defence it was 3.30 and I was in there with 5 children under 9 (not all mine) and there were lots more piling in after primary school. There was one photo in the Times today where he is not quite dead and you can see his eyes and it as stayed with me all day, I haven't watched the news on purpose. I am no shrinking violet and have had someone die literally in my arms at work but I don't want my children to see these things.

lostinwales, I would have done the same thing.
I saw it on the bbc news at 1pm today and although I wasn't completely disturbed by it I was very grateful my 4yr old DS wasn't here.
'Some viewers may find these images distressing' just isn't enough when it comes to a reporter in a freezer container crouched next to the corpse of Gaddafi and his son while giving a news report
Especially not at 1pm in the afternoon.

the following sheds some light on this issue
www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-gaddafi-death-images-idUSTRE79K5WU20111021

Hope all the squeamish people on this thread will be avoiding subjecting their delicate children to the Hallowe'en images of skeletons, skulls, zombies, ghouls and corpses etc. Wouldn't want any double standards...

Cogito I don't object to the images being shown what I object to is the images being shown early in the evening.

My children have seen a dead body before (DH's culture has the body in the house) so its not squeamishness.

There is a huge difference seeing a wounded man asking not to be killed (my boys speak Arabic) then pictures of his bloody corpse and the comic Hallowe'en images.

Just because Gaddafi trivialised the death of Libyan people doesn't mean I am prepared to trivialise the manner of his death. I don't feel enriched from having seen what appears to be an extra-judicial execution I suppose the one good thing from the images is that at least we know a bit more about what happened.

i'm really glad that other people think that showing these images is disgusting too. why do we need to see it at all?? going into the supermarket yesterday and it was on display all over the newspapers. I don't want to see it and absolutely no way do I want my child to see it. Just another reminder of how the human race really hasn't progressed that much. Utterly barbaric.

I agree, Chaz and Madam. Hysterical mobs are really scary ...

I was thinking of the Gaddafy mothers, sisters, daughters and other family members who maybe weren't involved in any crimes.

Plus there are loads more criminals in the Gaddafy regime - you can't just blame the men who gave the orders.