The internet broadcast of video footage showing the decapitation of a US hostage by Iraqi militants signals a new era in wartime propaganda, according to war historian Phillip Knightley. “I can’t think of any war in living memory where images have been so important,” said Knightley, author of “The First Casualty”, an acclaimed history of war correspondents and propaganda. “Usually the underdog has not been able to manipulate the media in the same way that the major Western news corporations have,” Knightley said on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio. “But now they’ve learned how to do it and anyone with a small digital camera that is prepared to take images that are so horrific that they can’t be ignored is certain of worldwide coverage,” he said. The images released this week on an Islamic website of the beheading of American Nick Berg by Iraqi militants and leaked pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners are a “landmark in the whole history of the way wars are covered”, he said. Full Story
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