Fox News host Howard Kurtz said Wednesday that he did not approve of the network both broadcasting a still image from an Islamic State video showing a Jordanian pilot be burned alive and posting the footage in full on its website.
“I disagree with the Fox decision and here’s why: ISIS — I fear that many of the us in the media are helping ISIS spread its propaganda, using its fear tactics,” Kurtz told fellow Fox host Megyn Kelly.
Kurtz, who hosts a show criticizing media, said that he understood the argument made by Fox’s higher-ups, that “the barbarity of ISIS” trumped concerns over showing the graphic video of pilot Muath Al-Kaseasbeh burning to death in a cage.
“I just have a concern that we are helping spread the fear that ISIS so badly wants to spread,” he concluded.
Kurtz’s concerns echoed what a terror expert told the Guardian on Wednesday, that the Fox News Channel should be receiving “royalty checks” from the Islamic State.
“[Fox News] are literally – literally – working for al-Qaida and Isis’ media arm,” expert Malcolm Nance said, arguing that the channel had placed more hostages, including an American, in danger.
Kelly defended the decision of her show to a frame from the hostage’s death as a tool to “remind people of the enemy we face.”
“It’s as if we’re in World War II, Howie, and there’s a chance to see inside the concentration camp and inside the gas chamber as the horror was happening,” she said.
Watch the clip, courtesy of Media Matters:
