Thursday, March 03, 2005

More on NBC's Big Mistake

Yesterday I did a short post on NBC News leading off its broadcast on Tuesday by misidentifying the Iraqi judge killed and then showing a video feed of the still alive judge. As promised I have more on the story. NBC admitted their error and aired a correction to their "confirmed" story on their second feed of the story at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesday. They also aired a correction on their Wednesday broadcast. While I credit them for airing a correction, that still does not make up for their grave error of showing the judge's face on TV. Even if they correctly identified the judge killed, it would have still been irresponsible for them to show his face unblurred because terrorists could have used the picture to target the dead judge's family. The chief administration judge of Saddam's trial has apparently already been the target of assassination attempts and now that the whole world has pretty good idea what he looks like, those assassination attempts are likely to increase even though the judge is under heavy guard. Some one at NBC News screwed up and should be held accountable.