The grief police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmeDwsguvkA

Just like with Sandy Hook, some assholes are picking apart videos of James Foley's relatives, looking for telltale signs of fakery.
They seem to think his brother and sister are taking his death just a little too well.
Is there really anything in this video that would lead anyone to believe that?
Why is this line of questioning not out of bounds? Why have we gotten to the point where murder victims' relatives are fair game for this kind of shit?
No real journalist would ever even ask this.

There's also some quack in Great Britain who claims the beheading video was fake, too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/bill-gardner/11054488/Foley-murder-video-may-have-been-staged.html

 

This is not a new phenomenon. It happened after Nick Berg, too.

 

I don't mean this to sound callous, but he's been gone for so long, I think it's possible that some of his family members may have already "accepted" that he would never be coming home. That certainly doesn't mean they were prepared for a video of his execution to be shown to the world.

 

Plus, it's just an exercise in futility to sit there and try to figure out exactly how an individual should act when grieving. I delivered my dad's eulogy with a smile and a wink. My brother had to stop himself several times.

If you've ever read the New Yorker piece on the Cameron Todd Willingham execution in Texas, one of the dubious points the prosecution raised in order to convict him was that he didn't act like he was sad enough after his children died in a house fire. That's just one example. It's raised over and over and over again.

The bottom line is that some people are more composed than others. End of story.

 

Could you please express what you think this article says, and where you disagree with it?

It doesn't claim that he was murdered. You know that right? The article you linked to is subscription protected, and is in the paper that commissioned the analysis.

But, lots of other publications have summarized it:

This doesn't seem to me to be such an outrageous claim, and from what I can tell, people who know more than me are taking it as a serious possibility.

If it is crazy, could you point me to a good criticism of it?

 

Lack of blood was what made some skeptical of the Berg video, as well.

 

OK, professor, it doesn't make sense to me to go through the trouble of faking an execution, then killing the person off camera. It just seems easier to kill him on camera. It's sort of like how some 9-11 truthers claim that the people on the planes were taken to a secret base and killed there. Wouldn't it just be easier to leave them on the planes and fly them into the buildings?

Here's another article.
http://www.ibtimes.co.in/6-reasons-why-james-foley-beheading-video-could-be-fake-607607

This one also gives as a reason that Foley's parents were not behaving as they should be.
As I said, nobody should ever bring that up. It's not an ethical exercise for anyone's critical thinking, journalism or detective skills.
I don't buy the idea that to get at the truth, a journalist ever has to ask questions or make claims that are that disrespectful.

 

Staging an execution video is a pretty cheap trick.

 

I have no idea if the video was edited. It's not my area of expertize.

And, the fact that it wouldn't make sense to you or me is irrelevant.

It was either edited or it wasn't.

You seem to object to the question, and possibly even the answer.

Why?

Is some accepted version of the story better than a truthful version of the story? For journalists?

You want questions to go unasked?

And, look, if the questions were completely absurd, I would think someone credible would be saying that. Are they?

 

How are we to expect Barack Obama and John Kerry to understand the problems of combating ISIS if they haven't watched a fake execution video?

 

Let's ask John McCain and Rush Limbaugh what they think. I am sure they'll have an informed, well-considered take on the situation as usual.

 

I tee-hee'd.