The exact circumstances in which the dictator died may still be unclear, but that hasn't stopped the world press from leaping in to cover the death of this infamous dictator.
Here's a brief outline on the divergent details of the story as it emerged in in the UK press yesterday: The Guardian states that Gaddafi was attempting to flee Libya in aNATO Convoy of cars when Nato jets, from French forces, attacked. Then the convoy became embroiled in a gun battle, where anti-Gaddafi fighters supposedly shot Gaddafi, seriously wounding him. So far, so good: there is little contention about these events.
Where things start to get tricky after Gaddafi moved away from the convoy. Reports then state that Gaddafi crawled away into a drain where fighters loyal to the new government of the National Transitional Council discovered him. This version of events is recognised by the BBC, their source Reuters and The Guardian.
Video footage, which has also been widely reported and re-hosted, in this case by The Telegraph, shows an injured Gaddafi being man-handled by opponents. His death has been officially confirmed by National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta, but there is still little consensus on how exactly he died.
Some reports say he was shot with a 9mm pistol in the stomach, others in one leg, others in both legs. The Guardian Live Blog also featured quotes from an Associated Press story, which claimed a doctor verified that Gaddafi died from bullets to the chest and head:
"Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance and examined it, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, to the head and chest."
There are also suggestions that this bullet to the head may have been an execution.
The challenge for news organisations is to verify the plethora of material given to them. At 1.24 pm, The Guardian posted an image, unverified at that time, of Gaddafi's body captured by mobile phone. At 1.44pm an image from the same video was sent to the paper via Agence France Presse, who seemed to have designated the material as genuine. This image has now appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the globe.
Of course, there is a social media dimension to all of this; The Columbia Journalism Review did an excellent job of collating various tweets that showed how the news confusedly broke in the US via twitter. Naturally, Andy Carvin of NPR's twitter account has acted as a live stream of information verification. Carvin's video footage analysis leads him to believe that he was beaten with pistols, which tallies with translations of (unverified) video interviews with fighters who claim to have been present at his capture.
To keep abreast of this information onslaught, The Guardian made an astute move and switched the locus for its live coverage from London to New York at 5pm BST. Thus, coverage wasn't compromised by time zone.
So, how did the press wrap it all up the next day?
The Independent opted for a more traditional tact in its coverage; as opposed to The Guardian, which launched head-first into delivering the most up-to-the-minute information, verified or not, The Independent realeased a series of commentaries and opinion pieces on the downfall of Gaddafi and the future of Libya.
The strategy seems to be working; the controversially titled opinion piece by Robert Fisk "You can't blame Gaddafi for thinking he was one of the good guys" has received 127 re-tweets (as of 12.13 BST) since being posted this morning. Not bad going when you consider that "Libya's bloody victory over Gaddafi is just the beginning" by Abdel Bari Atwan, hosted on The Guardian, has received 25 tweets since yesterday.
The confusion regarding exactly how Gaddafi died was less than convenient for the morning editions, but what the press did have was some graphic visual evidence that Gaddafi was dead - crucially, that visual evidence was verified. Many newspapers decided to use it to full effect and bedeck their front pages with the image of the deceased dictator.
The Guardian has collated a slide show of press coverage from around the world, with French and Australian titles using the grizzly images of Gaddafi's death sparingly, whilst the British publication The Sun went for all out shock value with a horrifying image of the dictator's corpse and the headline : "That's for Lockerbie". Media commentator Roy Greenslade features an in depth run-down of UK press coverage of his Guardian blog.
However, the BBC has featured an online article that represents the views of the families of Yvonne Fletcher, the police officer shot in the Libyan Embassy protests and of a Lockerby bombing victim. Contrary to The Sun's headline, they believe that Gaddafi's death will leave many questions unanswered.
Stories such as Gaddafi's death illustrate how news sourcing and delivery strategies have changed due to the digital revolution. Watching the unfolding story of Gaddafi's death is a snap shot of how today's news industry works.
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