The incident you mentioned in Sri Lanka about dismembered buddhist monks is not exactly correct(Though it’s not the focus of the article).

The killing was done by Tamil Tigers(LTTE) and the monks were hacked to death and it was not due to any “religious violence”. So I think it was incorrect to say “blown up in religious violence”

Thank You

“One gruesome story I recall from my days as a producer was the dismembered remains of a group of Buddhist monks blown up in religious violence in Sri Lanka. I chose to run the temple, blood, bodies from a slightly longer distance, but not close-up shots of piles of dismembered limbs being swept up.”

Thank you for all your responsesthere are too many for me to reply to each individually, but I should correct a couple of possible misconceptions.

A number of respondents seem to have confused CNN and Reuters, criticising Reuters on the basis of what CNN has put to air. We are completely separate organisations (although CNN is a client of Reuters and uses large amounts of our international news video). Reuters is also not an American news organisation, nor in fact, a news organisation tied to any one country it is an independent, international newsgathering organisation with an international staff and global client base, committed to impartial and independent reporting.

Reuters supplies thousands of news companies around the world, and apart from our own consumer-facing properties such as this website, it is up to those subscribers what to use of our material and what they say about it. I understand that many of the responses to my first posting were about how the media generally does/doesnt or should/shouldnt treat graphic imagery, rather than direct comments on Reuters policy, but Reuters is no more the media than any other news organisation is.

As one respondent correctly pointed out, the internet has resulted in an explosion of different outlets for news-linked material (including war and related video). If long-established and dare I say it, respected news companies like Reuters ever did act as something of gatekeeper of standards and ethics for what the public sees, we no longer could be that even if we wanted tothere are far too many other news outlets for people to choose from and the internet has (rightly) ensured that no single news organisation can or should dominate the pipes of distribution (and therefore content) in a democracy.

That doesnt mean that we at Reuters should abandon all concepts of taste and ethics, and adopt a free-for-all mentality. There is an equally strong argument that in the anything-goes culture of the internet, a company like Reuters is needed more than ever before to provide a trusted and reliable source amid a media sea where the provenance of information is often difficult to be sure of.

Reuters will probably always be accused in equal part of being pro- and anti- the same country by different viewers/readers at the same time, with a variety of ulterior motives attributed to us by various sections of the community. Whether or not Saddam was a bad man is not particularly relevant to how we approach coverage of the occupation and insurgency since his capture (which is to cover it objectively and as best we can within the dangers and logistical challenges of the situation, because democracies, unlike Saddams dictatorship, are supposed to be open to scrutiny). I can understand however the view expressed by a couple of respondents that if the US media was prepared to show the sniper killings of US soldiers, then why not the execution of Saddam? (Unlike with the beheadings cases, we did not have a lot of television news editors around the world demanding we show the instant of Saddam’s death, as verification was not the major issue).

Generally however, your comments have reinforced to me that we should wherever possible, provide all the relevant material we can to viewers (with warnings where necessary about graphic content), leaving it to their judgment as to what to conclude from it. That by necessity means sailing very close to what some would see the line of taste and decency, and maybe across it on occasion too (although it is also clear there is no one line or one correct decision in these matters). I would rather occasionally however put out material that is disquieting, because war and war imagery by definition is disquieting, than be too willing to edit something out and therefore deny potentially important information to the public.

John Clarke
News Editor
Reuters Television