It appears as though the New York Times endorses on line video when it shows the deaths of American military personnel; however showing the death by hanging of Saddam Hussein may be over the top.

Charles at lgf points out what may be the first factual error of 2007 for the New York Times. They wrongly state that lgf was hosting the full video of Saddam's hanging. Below, I decided to do a little digging to see how the NY Times handled another relevant story.

In his haste to take a slap at the “conservative” blog LGF for not observing the same “niceties” as mainstream media, New York Times writer Bill Carter failed to notice that the “complete video” is not posted at LGF, and never has been.

A search of the NY Times' archives didn't reveal any comment from them regarding CNN's now infamous showing of sniper videos produced by jihadists in Iraq. But I was able to find this piece at Newsbusters:

NY Times Paints Online Iraqi Insurgent Propaganda Videos as Public Service

"At a time when the Bush administration has restricted photographs of the coffins of military personnel returning to the United States and the Pentagon keeps close tabs on videotapes of combat operations taken by the news media, the videos give average Americans a level of access to combat scenes rarely available before, if ever.

And as this blog pointed out, the Times even suggested that there might have been political pressure on YouTube to not host the videos.

There is an implication that at least some of the complaints have a political basis. That is, it is somehow “unpatriotic” to post these videos. More generally, it is certainly true that the Bush Administration has actively sought to prevent Americans from seeing this sort of footage.

As might be expected, the Times seems to have more reverence for Saddam Hussein, a deposed murderous fascist, than they do the noble men and women of the US military.

Finally, I don't recall the Times ever directing people to full videos of terrorists be-headings innocents, which are also often posted on conservative blogs - as a public service. What the NY Times believes people have a right to know continues to skew towards the benefit of our enemies. Auld Lang Sang, or something like that, I suppose.

Jeff at Protein Wisdom follows up here.

—Dan Riehl is a blogger and journalist. Read more of his work at Riehl World View.