While western mass media refused to air footage of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s execution, millions of people have already viewed a video of the execution, on YouTube and Google Video. Will traditional media coverage ensue?

The available footage came from camera phones, as well as Iraqi and Arabic television sources that had chosen to air the execution. Fox News Channel was the first major western news source to post edited footage on its website, followed by CNN's and MSNBC's own videos, edited according to the companies 'etiquette.

The massive viewing of publicly relevant but violently explicit content, firstoff on a video sharing site rather than on a traditional news source, marked yet another step towards user-generated content and the convergence of amateur journalism and traditional media.

Less and less will the media be able to keep away the readership and audience from content the latter wishes to view. The interesting point now is that mainstream western media chose to put up the gruesome content on their websites after they realized the huge traffic it generated. Granted they carefully edited the video and warned viewers of the explicit nature of the content.

Source: Red Herring through Media Bistro - Hollywood Reporter