Tonight (Feb­ru­ary 21) I was vi­su­al­ly as­sault­ed by the im­age of a man's sev­ered head on my TV screen. I do not know if I pos­sess the words to de­scribe how dis­gust­ing and up­set­ting this was to me. I thought I was watch­ing a news broad­cast, not some low-bud­get shock-and-awe fea­ture.

It was dis­re­spect­ful to the view­ers, the vic­tim, and the vic­tim's fam­i­ly. Not even a warn­ing was placed on the screen be­fore show­ing the hor­rif­ic im­age. Many par­ents en­cour­age and ex­pect their chil­dren to watch the news. I can't imag­ine how I would feel if I had chil­dren and they had that grue­some­ness thrust up­on them! As it was, I felt in­censed.

I am 27 years old, ed­u­cat­ed, and con­sid­er my­self to be a for­ward think­ing and open mind­ed in­di­vid­ual. I tell you this be­cause I don't want who­ev­er reads this to have the mis­guid­ed no­tion that I am per­haps an el­der­ly woman who ob­jects to any­thing vi­o­lent and vul­gar. I ob­ject to bla­tant vi­o­la­tions of de­cen­cy and dig­ni­ty.

I ob­ject to the hu­mil­i­a­tion of the vic­tim in be­ing so dis­played. I ob­ject to an or­gan­i­sa­tion that ap­par­ent­ly does not have the sense to see that what hap­pened should nev­er have been al­lowed.

This is not even the first trans­gres­sion in this man­ner. Last year a mur­dered man was shown sprawled on the street with his lifeblood around him, as his fam­i­ly stood feet away scream­ing and bawl­ing. Is this news or is it sen­sa­tion­al­ism? When did it be­come okay to prof­it from a fam­i­ly's fresh grief and hold it open for the world to see?

Am I sup­posed to bet­ter feel the weight of the crime be­cause of the star­tling vi­su­al aid the sta­tion has hap­pi­ly sup­plied to go with the sto­ry? Is it too much to ask that the news be shared in a se­ri­ous and re­spect­ful man­ner? I did not think it was.

Per­haps the pow­ers that be felt that in show­ing the im­age un­al­tered they were pre­sent­ing cut­ting edge, hard-hit­ting news. They are wrong. It was ju­ve­nile, ill thought out (or rather there was no think­ing in­volved) and I'm hearti­ly ashamed that that broad­cast is the sort of thing that pass­es for news on what should be a rep­utable pro­gramme. Do bet­ter. Do bet­ter. Do bet­ter.

Shan­non Navar­ro

via e-mail