"Islamic State's latest victims" Topic

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Now these are the kind of terrorists we should be sending people like Chris Kyle to kill without prejudice.

Agreed.

Trick is, of course, finding them.

Indeed … on both posts …

Well one of them was a private security contractor/mercenary, so he knew the risks.

The journalist however….

I decided ISIS needed exterminating when I heard about the kids getting killed in captured towns.

Journalists should know the risks also. But they somehow still expect instant and absolute immunity wherever they go and whatever they do. The world is a different place now.

Dan

Journalists should know the risks also.

They do, Dan, based on the many interviews I've read with reporters who cover war zones.

But they somehow still expect instant and absolute immunity wherever they go and whatever they do.

That may be true of the blow-dried network airheads, but not the print and photo journalists who do the real reporting. They're well aware of the risks, and they take many precautions to prevent just this sort of tragedy from happening. But sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes there are fatal consequences.

Regarding the Japanese reporter, Kenji Goto, he has covered primarily humanitarian issues throughout his career. He has reported on, and written books about, war in many areas of the world, especially Africa and the Middle East, as well as stories on AIDS, blood diamonds, child soldiers, and the education of girls in Afghanistan.

He was captured in Syria, where he was attempting to negotiate the release of the other Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa. He sounds like a hell of a brave man.

Lately a "journalists deserve whatever fate befalls them" vibe seems to have taken over some areas of TMP, and it's not an attractive or realistic pose to take.

Apparently then, the journalist was also aware of the risks.

Definitely to his credit that he made the attempt.

Doesn't make the other fellow less worthy of sympathy.

And frankly this doesn't make the terrorists/jihadis more despicable than they already were – as noted above anyone who murders children and civilians in general needs to be put down.

Without having read the book, my presumption is that killing people like this is what Chris Kyle 'enjoyed.'

Personally don't think I would 'enjoy' it. But I do think I would feel a lot of satisfaction.

I'd be 'quietly satisfied' as befitting a gentleman killer ;) as for the journalists…

What about the journalists? Do tell us your take on it.

My take … no one save for a Deash jihadi should die like that …

Agreed.

No one should die like that.

But being in the wrong place at the wrong time, particularly when both of those things are so darn obvious … Well, the Westeners willingly went to the area. They had a choice. As Goragrad said, I pitty more the women and children and other innocent civilians who are stuck there and can't escape the danger.

Ironic how the death of foreign journalist gets more network coverage than the reports of atrocities they worked so hard to document and expose to the whole world. That is what ticks me off the worst. If journalists everywhere really want to honor their fallen comrades, then give priority to what their comrades risked their lives to uncover. Otherwise stop sending journalists and other workers. Those brutal civilian deaths, which are well into the tens of thousand already, only get a passing mention every so often.

In fact, by giving the beheading of a handful of foreign nationals so much coverage, they are really the key collaborators with ISIS, by fulfilling the terrorist world marketing agenda iand by drawing attention away from the thousands of innocent civilians being killed by the fanatics each week. The networks can't be so naive as to not understand their collaboration in the diversionary strategies of ISIS. They put selling stories over basic morality and civil responsibility. By doing that they are almost as reprehensible as indiscriminate weapons dealers.

ISIS doesn't even need to bother setting up or hacking into the occasional YouTube and Facebook accounts. They are already getting the exact worldwide media coverage they want via their willing partners in the general media.

Dan

Excellent post Dan.

Frankly the coverage reminds of the difference in the way the news reported the Balkan Wars and the way they covered Rwanda.

For some reason the atrocities against European Muslims got more coverage than the massacre of of tens of thousands of Africans.

Of course the coverage of the Balkan Wars became more intense when the victims were Muslims than when they were Christians.

Excellent Posts Cacique Caribe and goragrad. I think that, before the web, terrorists were more interested in using reporters to get their story out to the public. Now, with the web, reporters are no longer needed to get out the word. So the reporters become viable targets like all the others (foreigners etc.). And killing one of them will get you more headlines and media exposure that killing almost anyone else.

Sometimes it appears the media does not report the news … it "makes" the news. At the time of the terror attacks in France. BH in Nigeria wiped an entire village … but that didn't get the same coverage. Either way islamic jihadis are out of control. And need to be purged … of course easier said then done … Didn't Stalin, one of the greatest mass murders of the 20th Century, say … "One death is a tragedy, 2 are a statistic. " ?

To some extent it's because it was perceived that Africans killing each other was hardly newsworthy whilst a major land war in Europe is unusual.

Which explains, but doesn't excuse the news agenda.

Then there's the simple fact that reporting from northern Nigeria is both difficult and extraordinarily dangerous. Paris somewhat less so.

But yes, there's a lot that happens in this world the western media don't cover – it's why Al Jazeera is worth a look from time to time.

Journalists are funny creatures and driven by the almighty dollar and not really by journalistic integrity – hence Iraq gets a thumbs up and Nigeria gets ignored.

I remember watching a documentary about journalists in Palestine. Some of them would stoop so low as to pay kids to go throw rocks at Israeli troops to get footage.

There's still some good journalists but I think they're rare.

It has to do with what is deemed to be "newsworthy" and "sensational" at the moment. Daesh and their shenanigans (uh, atrocities) are the hot topic right now trending on Twitter, so the media is giving us what they think we want, not necessarily what we need. It's a consumers' market.

Daesh is social media-savvy, so to an extent they also dictate what is newsworthy, like their periodic, sensational and grisly beheadings on camera.

28mm Fanatik, you hit the nail on the head.