Tastefully Covering Saddam's Execution

In From the Cold:

According to Reuters, the major broadcast networks are already discussing how to handle Saddam's date with death. Iraqi officials reportedly plan to tape his execution, raising the question of how to handle those images, if they're offered to western media outlets. Earlier this week, the Iraqi government released video of the mass hanging of 13 convicts, an event some described as "gruesome." In regards to airing Saddam's execution, "taste" has become the operative word on broadcast row:
[snip]
A slight correction, if I may. Al-Jazeera has never aired the execution of a deposed Arab leader, convicted of murdering his own people. But the Qatar-based channel has shown lots of terrorist video of IED attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, depicting the murder and maiming of U.S. soldiers. Ditto for the U.S. networks. Go to their websites and run a search for "video of IED attacks" and you'll get dozens of hits, with links to their stories on that subject. Many of those reports contain footage of IED explosions, or their aftermath.

In other words, it's perfectly acceptable to show a blast that shreds a HUMVEE and kills American soldiers inside, but it's somehow distasteful to air video of Saddam swinging from the end of a rope.

Give me a break.

I wonder if Linda Mason, CBS's arbiter of broadcast news "taste," is concerned about the impact of those HUMVEE explosion on "children who might be watching," particularly those with a mother, father or other relative fighting in Iraq? The answer to that question is apparently "no," because CBS (and its competitors) have made IED blasts a staple of their coverage from Iraq, even if the victims are often Americans, and their pain and suffering is palpable to the U.S. audience. Such hypocrisy from the networks is galling--yet utterly predictable.