As is my norm, I turned on Sky News as soon as I got up to see what was happening in the world. What I got was film from a mobile phone of a clearly terrified and bloodied Gadaffi being dragged through the streets, and then summarily executed. I didn't enjoy seeing it, and I strongly believe that it shouldn't have been shown before the watershed, and possibly not even after it.
I have no doubt that very young children across the land saw this coverage before they went to school. The broadcaster can't rely on parents ensuring that their kids don't see the news, and if they did, then in this instance they may well have been traumatised - it was nasty, nasty stuff that would earn an 18 certificate at the cinema, and Sky showed it at 07:00! Irrespective of what kind of a bastard Gadaffi was, and by all accounts he was a particularly nasty one, he shouldn't have met his end in that way - no human being should. However, once that happened, it would have been possible to report it without showing the footage. To me it smacks of lazy journalism, as so much television journalism is nowadays. The obsession with images gets in the way of skilled journalists reporting the facts in a considered and enlightening way.
It's little wonder that journalism as a profession is now regarded as being on a par with merchant banking or stockbroking - the sort of thing you don't want to own up to doing for a living.
Thank God for radio and the quality press!
