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Ordinarily I'd agree, my point is quite specifically that it is wholly unethical to run a front page with close-up pictures depicting a muzzle flash and the last moments of a woman literally being murdered.

Doesn't set a particularly high ethical bar, really.

I have changed my mind.

The government is precisely the right body to dictate what should or should not be appropriate for the press to write.

Particulalry in matters of taste, morality and ethics.

And it took three posts to go from rational point to extreme position.

OK to put it even more bluntly - I don't think it is right that the front page of a newspaper should show graphic murder footage.

It isn't a matter of taste but one of respect to somebody who has been murdered. Go to liveleak or reddit it you must see someone getting shot.

Also IPSO is technically independent. Although obviously it isn't but we're not talking about legislation here.

"The papers contain some images which viewers may find distressing"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-34070373

I don't think it really matters if people find it distressing aside from the family and friends of the victims.

I don't think it is right

Neither do I. I find most of what is written in the press, and the manner in which it is presented, to be on a spectrum ranging from low-grade dross through to abhorrent shit.

Go to liveleak or reddit it you must see someone getting shot.

What's the difference between showing something on liveleak or reddit compared to a paper? Both should be regulated, surely?

It isn't a matter of taste but one of respect

I'll add "showing respect" to the list of things that should be regulated.

[Edit] And "things that people find distressing"

I said it doesn't matter if people find things distressing. I think my point is being misconstrued - perhaps I am not articulating it properly.

In any case I can't be bothered, I just think it's really shit and not at all OK.

It's shit and tasteless but at what point do you draw the line? I remember when Al Jazeera were lampooned for showing dead US & British soldiers (despite also showing dead Iraqi civilians killed by US troops) because it is "unacceptable to show war dead" & then a few months later Saddam Hussein's sons dead & bloodied faces were plastered everywhere. What I'm saying is that these events are horrific but war, for example, shouldn't be sanitized as it has been over the last 20 odd years by the press being carefully stage managed & there could be a real danger of that if some sort of body has control of what images we see & also it could be open to double standards as I outlined above.

We should see dead soldiers and the unpleasant results of the wars our countries are involved in. We should see the realities of police officers opening fire on unarmed citizens. It could be argued that we should see other shocking images if it serves a purpose, after all if German citizens in the early 40's had seen images of what was going on in the death camps it may have changed opinions or started a dialogue & the Nazi's were very careful about keeping the citizens from seeing the reality for precisely those reasons.

I agree that there is no need to see the last horrified expression of a woman being shot. The best way to show your feelings about it is a boycott of those papers and/or letting your feelings be known rather than insisting that there should be censorship across the board.

Normalising violence does nothing but make the whole world more violent. There is absolutely no benefit in allowing the armchaired world to witness such horrible things.

There is no credibility to the argument that showing people the horrors of war or despicable acts makes people more empathetic.

This is not sinister at all. Not one bit.

First State Legalizes Taser Drones for Cops, Thanks to a Lobbyist

It's particularly not sinister, because it was pushed through the state legislature by corporate lobbyists.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34062664

Well, that was a fine use of six months of my life then.

Yeah, the whole planning ahead thing was never really that well thought out. Hopefully it wasn't a total waste of time...

Tbf, you did get 2 weeks R&R holiday time in the middle of it.

My R&R was almost at the beginning. I was there for less than a month before I was home, and I missed my section's big contact of the tour because I was on a plane to Brize Norton while they were spending an evening giving it the rooty-toot.
I did get home with enough cash in the bank to buy a brand new Moto-Guzzi Griso, so it's not all bad.

And the two weeks does begin to shrink a bit by the time you've waited for a Blackhawk from Gereshk to Bastion, then waited for your Hercules to Kandahar, then waited amongst all the weird Americans (and other assorted nationalities) for your RAF flight to Brize. That has been known to take two or three days each way...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/28/google_robocar_suffers_brain_freeze_after_seeing_hipster_cyclist/

There is no credibility to the argument that showing people the horrors of war or despicable acts makes people more empathetic.

Actually there is. In the first world war when the only entertainment were news reels at the cinema & this was a new technology and the ramifications were little understood, they showed some footage from the front of soldiers going over the top & many of them being shot & the public were shocked and outraged because up until that point the impressions were that the war was some kind of jolly jape that our boys would deal with quickly. It changed opinion & it was quickly understood there and then that what the public was shown should be controlled in the future & this continues to this day.

First comment is disappointingly daily-mail-esque.

standard internet tough guy stuff. probably gave jason statham a pwoppah shoeing when they was at school together, swear on me mum etc

Yeah, I agree with this (in as much as I can with out seriously researching it). Images of conflict through the media has played a part in turning war from a nationalistic vote winning jolly (WW1) to a million on the streets protesting, as we saw during the Iraq war.

Totally anecdotal but because of where I work we once had Don McCullin, the war photographer, come to our office and he showed us a film he shot in the DRC when he got a lift there with some mercenaries during the Congo crisis in the early 60s. This wasn't the sort of film you could show on the TV.

I was nearly sick, as was a colleague sat next to me. That definitely made me more empathetic.

It has not made me more violent.

Have you seen the "McCullin" documentary? Incredible and terrifying. What a guy.

No. Met him though. Yes he's awesome. And very wise to stop when he did and start doing landscapes.