To Show or Not to Show

The picture was seen around the world: A young man dressed in an orange prison suit, sitting in front of five others in black, their faces covered with scarves. It was a still picture taken from the video showing the beheading of 26-year-old Nick Berg by terrorists in Iraq.

What most didn't show was the murder that followed. In Germany, only the tabloid Bild published a picture of one of the terrorists holding up Berg's head, prompting harsh criticism from the German Association of Journalists (DJV).

"With this kind of sensationalist journalism, which neglects all principles of humanity and human rights, Bild is burying media ethics," Michael Konken, DJV's president, said in a statement. "Pictures of the slaughtering of humans does not belong in the media." He added that he hoped the German Press Council, which acts as a media ethics watchdog, would take up the case.

Getting journalists thinking

Council officials said they had already received a complaint about coverage of the video, but added that they couldn't comment further until the next council meeting in mid-June.

Ilka Desgranges, the council's chairwoman, told DW-WORLD that the publication of a photograph depicting a severed head didn't necessarily cross ethical boundaries. She said that in a previous complaint, the council had not censured the publication of the head of a Liberian soldier. "That's admissible because it helped to remind people of a forgotten war," she said.

But that argument is unlikely to work in the case of the Berg video as the situation in Iraq is all but forgotten, Desgranges said. She added that while the council could censure the publication, it has no jurisdiction to press the case further. "We hope that [censure] gets journalists thinking," she said.

"But it doesn't help with newspapers that try to increase circulation by publishing such pictures."

The public's right to see?

Bild officials said they believed news organizations had a duty to inform the public truthfully about politically important events. "This includes the pictures of Nick Berg's beheading," Nicolaus Fest, a member of the newspaper's editorial board, said in a statement.

Fest added that the murder had occurred precisely to get the pictures, hence reducing the destruction of a human being to nothing more than a propaganda tool.

"The murder documents that terrorism doesn't distinguish between combatants and civilians," Fest said. "Thirdly, as happened with the [torture] pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, shock is followed by compassion with the victim and outrage over the perpertrators. That maybe is the best thing photos can achieve."