The appalling butchery in Iraq and the unbearable ordeal of the hostages and their families has been given an extra dimension of horror by the videoed pleas of Ken Bigley as he begs Tony Blair to intercede to save his life. The intention of the hostage-takers is all too plain: to put the maximum pressure on Blair, and to sicken the British public to such an extent that they pile mounting pressure upon him to pull out of Iraq and fracture the relationship with the US. As with every act of barbarism by this particular enemy, it is conceived and executed to further a deadly and manipulative strategy based on a careful reading of the state of public opinion in the west. Those countries where the public is deemed to be flaky get the full treatment. That is surely why, although two Americans were appallingly beheaded in the current spate of hostage-taking, it is the British victim whose ordeal is being beamed into British homes. That is why the current prevailing hysteria, blaming Bush and Blair -- obscenely -- for these atrocities, calling for Blair to be impeached and so forth and daily displaying a lack of stomach or even a shred of understanding of the struggle we are in, are directly responsible for the perpetuation of the carnage.

But there's something else that's just as troubling. The Iraqi butchers are only taking these hostages and murdering them in this disgusting snuff-video style because the media -- of which I am a part -- are behaving exactly as required and putting these pictures on our screens and front pages. If the media did not do this, it would stop. I think therefore that we in the media have to examine our consciences and say we have a responsibility here beyond informing the public. We should not be giving these pictures this treatment; we should find ways of reporting the bare facts of what is going on without turning ourselves into accomplices to murder. Because that's what it is.

When I said this to colleagues over the past few days, their riposte was, as might be expected, to say that freedom of speech and the need to inform the public were essential in a democracy. They also said it would be impossible to police. As Nick Robinson says in the Times today:

'To censor our coverage now would be a political act. We can no more censor images of the appalling deaths of hostages than we can of the victims of war. The Pentagon’s decision to refuse to allow pictures to be taken of coffins returning from Iraq was, I have little doubt, not simply to show respect, as officials claimed. There is another problem. Even if all the terrestrial broadcasters wanted to we could not black out CNN, Fox and al-Jazeera, not to mention the internet.'

Yes, he has a strong point. And in normal times I would agree. But these are not normal times. Yes, all terrorists exploit the media. And I don't think that all terrorist acts therefore should not be given any coverage. But what we are facing is not conventional terrorism, nor conventional warfare. We are in a totally unprecedented situation, one for which all our existing rules are simply inadequate. I think the western media cannot avoid the fact that it is now being used -- appallingly -- as a weapon of war against the west.

I think this piece in the Telegraph makes the point very well. Commenting on the fact that the US media has given the hostage murders a low profile, it quotes the media columnist of the Washington Post who, after saying that unfortunately the number of these atrocities has now blunted their news value, adds this:

'Mr Kurtz also suggested that American newspaper editors - who are expected to be more high-minded than is always the case in Britain - were wary of allowing terrorists to force their way on to the front page by the sheer brutality of their crimes."I don't think there were any secret meetings of the media elite. But there seems to have been a subconscious desire to play down these incidents and not allow the terrorists to seize the press agenda," Mr Kurtz said. A similar defence was offered by the Chicago Tribune to its readers.The paper's ombudsman wrote: "The Tribune doesn't want to be in the position of a puppet with the Islamic kidnappers pulling the strings. To grab the attention of the American public and, yes, to terrorise them is the reason Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his henchmen stage these grisly murders." '

I think the British media should follow suit. But the problem is that America understands we are at war. Britain does not.