On Tuesday night, Fox News posted to its website the full video produced by the Islamic State showing the murder of a Jordanian pilot as he was set on fire and burned alive in a cage.
The publishing of the video came just hours after Fox host Bret Baier aired a graphic still image from the video showing the Islamic State hostage aflame. It was an effort, Baier said, “to bring you the reality of Islamic terrorism and to label it as such.”
The full 22-minute video of Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kaseasbeh being set on fire by militants was posted on the Fox News website with the title, “WARNING, EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO: ISIS burns hostage alive.” (TPM has decided not to show the image or video.)
Malcolm Nance, the executive director of the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology told the Guardian on Wednesday that Fox News publishing the video was “exactly what Isis wants to propagate.”
“[Fox News] are literally – literally – working for al-Qaida and Isis’ media arm,” Nance said, saying that the channel had placed more hostages, including an American, in danger.
“They might as well start sending them royalty checks,” he added.
Before airing the still image on Tuesday evening, Baier warned that the footage he was about to show was very graphic and suggested that parents take their children out of the room.
“The reason we’re showing you this is to bring you the reality of Islamic terrorism and to label it as such,” host Bret Baier said. “We feel you need to see it so we will put up one of these images on your screen right now.”
Here is the link to Fox’s page hosting the video. (Warning, the link leads to footage that is extremely graphic.)
Here is a screenshot of Fox’s media player identifying the footage of Al-Kaseasbeh’s murder:
