As the Islamic terror group ISIS releases video showing the beheading of another Western hostage, Dan Rather and Jeff Greenfield discuss whether news organizations should be giving airtime to these videos. Does it serve a public interest or is it giving the terror group the publicity that they want – or both?

«This is the first social media war,» Rather said. «In the way the Vietnam War was the first television war, this is the first social media war. ISIS has proved to be very adept, very talented, if you will – you always hope evil won’t be – in ratcheting up the hysteria, ratcheting up the image of their influence far beyond what their actual military capabilities are.»

Greenfield said the existence of the videos «tends to force, I think, our policymakers into taking decisions they might not take absent the emotional punch of those pictures. They tend to maybe say more than what reality lets them say.»… MORE

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