• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, January 3, 2007

The grainy cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's hanging Friday night already seems destined to become the world's most famous snuff film. Filmed surreptitiously by an Iraqi official standing below the gallows, the video was originally broadcast overseas by Al-Jazeera before it was posted online. Since then the video has spread to every corner of the Internet, including video file-sharing sites like YouTube.

While mainstream news outlets for the most part declined to broadcast the images, some still directed viewers to the Web footage. Among mainstream U.S. news outlets, the Web sites of The New York Times and Fox News linked to the full version of video. The New York Times "Lede Blog" linked to streaming video on LiveLeak.com, while Fox News linked to Google Video.

The Web sites of CNN and ABC--while eschewing direct broadcasts of the footage--aired brief parts of the video obliquely while reporting on the viral spread of the video via cell phones in Iraq, looking over users' shoulders as they watched the video. However, these clips never included the moment of death.

A spokeswoman for The New York Times noted that the paper did not post the video itself, but provided a link because "the political and other consequences of what was seen and heard on the video were major news stories from Iraq after the execution." She added that "many Web sites had posted it."

While gruesome, many say the clip also has real news value. For one thing, it seems to confirm reports that spectators taunted the former dictator in the moments before his execution, including shouts of "Muqtada," the name of the Shi'ite demagogue accused by the U.S. government of destabilizing Iraq. It may also help refute conspiracy theories claiming Hussein is still alive.

Nonetheless, even the decision to post links to sites with the footage poses potential ad ramifications. NYTimes.com and FoxNews.com both had banner ads adjacent to the links and still images from the video. Fox News also posted a version of the video that showed almost everything except the moment of execution itself--and was running pre-roll ads against this content, including a 30-second spot for financial planning from T. Rowe Price.

Tracey Scheppach, vice president, video innovation director, Starcom USA, said marketers should have the opportunity to withdraw their ads when sites intend to display them near such content. "No one would want to knowingly advertise against that," she said, adding that marketers expect to be able to pull their TV ads when networks air offensive content. "If you're a site that doesn't have those controls, you're at a real competitive disadvantage," she said.

Barry Parr, a media analyst with Jupiter Research, added that the wide availability of the clip online posed a dilemma for news organizations. "Clearly, it's controversial. If you're any sort of mainstream news organization, you're just not going to show videos of executions," said Parr. What's more, he said, "most advertisers aren't going to be interested in being next to that kind of content."

But other sites don't operate under such restrictions, placing mainstream news organizations in a competitive quandary. Parr also noted: "You're always going to find someone whose standards are low enough that they'll post it."

Meanwhile, the clip is hugely popular on YouTube--where one posting racked up over 244,000 views by Tuesday afternoon, four days after the execution took place. The video has also inspired an outpouring of gallows humor, including satirical cartoons and reenactments with puppets that have also scored tens of thousands of views. But the basic nature of the clip itself still raises the question of whether marketers will want to be associated with sites such as YouTube that exert little control over the user-uploaded videos.

Indeed, YouTube seems to be making an exception to its own terms of use for the video of Hussein's execution. Although not specifically forbidden, in the past clips showing a death have usually fallen somewhere in the range of content that's "obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic... encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense... or is otherwise inappropriate." For example, YouTube has removed multiple copies of the 2004 beheading of Nick Berg by terrorists in Iraq, as well as the 1987 gun suicide of R. Budd Dwyer, the former State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, committed during a televised press conference.