Why I Didn't Like Saddam Hussein Verdict Coverage

Saddam in trial.

If the BBC loses its way by failing to report on current affairs without the full consideration of history behind it, it is all too easy to see how our society's hard-fought-for values will be squandered.

By Citizen Correspondent Kieren McCarthy

Date Posted: 11/06/06

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The sentence handed down to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was the death penalty. Contrary to the objective and neutral mandate expected of reputable news sources, some members of the British media were actually relishing in Hussein's ultimate fate. One journalist finds this tabloid-style sensationalism appalling and especially irresponsible when it concerns such a sensitive and divisive subject as capital punishment. Journalist Keiren McCarthy is saddened to see cultural logic and rationality given up in favor of base instincts and questions what the world and media learned from the other great wars of the last century, if not about the errors of our torturous ways.

I've just made my first official complaint to the BBC over its coverage of Saddam Hussein's trial verdict this morning.

I was watching News 24 and was appalled to hear the presenters relishing the prospect of Hussein being given the death sentence, discussing in some detail how he might be killed.

The BBC played repetitions of a judge's quote saying he hopes Saddam "gets what he deserves," and Iraqi studio guests saying that a death sentence was great news. And - even though no one was allowed on the streets of Baghdad - saying that most people would be celebrating the verdict.

I'm sorry but at what point did the UK's historic opposition to the death penalty get thrown out the window in the interests of tabloid speculation and excitement?

There have been very long, very intelligent and passionate debates over the death sentence which resulted in the end of hanging in the UK in 1965 (preceded by the Homicide Act of 1957). Since then, the matter has been the subject of hot debate approximately every 10 years, and every time the argument against the death penality has won, building a foundation of cultural thought and logic where our more base instincts have been subsumed by rational argument.

To see all that given up and ignored because it makes better television, and because of the strange madness that exists around this so-called War on Terror, makes me despair. Since 2001, we have gradually started ignoring all the lessons of the First and Second World Wars.