Advertisement

CBS News defends decision to show sarin gas attack on '60 Minutes'

'We wanted the world to see what this was in all of its ugliness,' Scott Pelley says

Pelley introduces Sunday's graphic segment. (CBS News)
Pelley introduces Sunday's graphic segment. (CBS News)

CBS News is defending its decision to air a video showing a 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria, for which no one has yet been held accountable, on Sunday's "60 Minutes."

"If you have young children watching right now, usually that's a good thing," correspondent Scott Pelley said at the top of the segment. "But this story is not for them."

The report included gruesome eyewitness footage of the attack that killed an estimated 1,429 people, including more than 400 children, in the suburbs of Damascus.

"These kinds of things happen in this world because people don't see them," Pelley said in an online interview explaining the decision to air the footage, "and don't know why of all the weapons in the world sarin is banned by almost every country on Earth. We wanted to just stop and show it to the world so people can understand the hideousness of this weapon."

In August 2013, videos surfaced online showing what appeared to be mass civilian casualties. Later, U.S. officials said lab results showed traces of the nerve agent in hair and blood samples collected from the scene.

"It was just such a horror, just unbelievable, inconceivable that this kind of a weapon would be used," Pelley said. "And then to use it on civilians — women, children, the elderly, neighborhoods — that's not the kind of thing you want to report on for a couple of days and walk away and never remember it again. You want to never forget."

CBS is hardly the first news organization to balance graphic footage with newsworthiness.

In February, Fox News allowed visitors to its website the opportunity to view footage released by the Islamic State militant group of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

“After careful consideration, we decided that giving readers of FoxNews.com the option to see for themselves the barbarity of ISIS outweighed legitimate concerns about the graphic nature of the video,” Fox News executive vice president John Moody said in a statement to Variety. “Online users can choose to view or not view this disturbing content.”

Television viewers were given a similar choice.

“The images are brutal. They are graphic. They are upsetting. You may want to turn away. You may want to have the children leave the room — right now,” Fox News' Bret Baier said on a Feb. 3 broadcast. “But the reason we’re showing you this is to bring you the reality of Islamic terrorism. And to label it as such. We feel you need to see it.”

Pelley said there was no hesitation at CBS over whether to show the footage.

"We wanted the world to see what this was in all of its ugliness," he said. "You can read about [the attack] all day, but if you don't see it, I don't believe the impact truly hits you."

Technology, Pelley added, has clearly changed the way humanitarian crimes are covered.

"What would've happened during the Holocaust if all the Jews had cellphones? Certainly the world would've found out much sooner what was happening," he said. "I think we have entered a new era of human rights that are in some way safeguarded and guaranteed by the fact that everybody has a video camera and a way to publish that video."

Warning: The video of Pelley's explanation, shown below, includes graphic footage of sarin gas victims. Viewer discretion is advised.