The ghoul merchants of the Guardian

The media coverage of Ian Tomlinson's death on the G20 protests has crossed the line from journalism to snuff movie. What started out as a legitimate journalistic endeavour - with reporters asking awkward questions about the police's actions and Tomlinson's subsequent demise - has turned into a low-down, semi-pornographic hunt for as many video images as possible of this unfortunate man's last, gasping moments.

This week, Channel 4 and the Guardian both reported on "brand new footage" of the moment when Tomlinson fell to the ground after being pushed by a riot cop. Filmed by an anonymous bystander on Cornhill, near the Bank of England, the shaky footage shows Tomlinson landing hard.

"G20 protest footage shows moment Ian Tomlinson's head hit the pavement", screamed a Guardian headline. The voiceover on the video posted on the Guardian's website almost seems to boast: "This is the only footage that shows the extent of Tomlinson's contact with the floor."

The Guardian coverage isn’t journalism. It’s the pornography of deathAnd in case any viewers (voyeurs?) missed the fleeting "moment" in the video when Tomlinson's head smashes against the pavement, the Guardian helpfully plays it in slow-motion, highlights Tomlinson's head, and zooms in.

It's a relief the video didn't also come with the strapline: "Roll up, roll up! Watch as a man loses his fight for life on the streets of London!"

What next: Tomlinson in the ambulance? Tomlinson on the slab? "Behold the ONLY FOOTAGE of Tomlinson having his brain diced and sliced and examined by pathologists..."

This isn't journalism; it is the pornography of death.

It is the transformation of a man's unfortunate public death into an even more public spectacle, played to us again and again in an attempt to stir up some kind of ersatz outrage against the dark forces who rule over us.

Prior to the discovery of the new head-smashing footage, we were treated to endless replays of the now-infamous video clip - filmed by a hedge fund manager, ironically - that shows Tomlinson being hit on the legs and then pushed by an officer.

Numerous newspapers, including those not normally known for agitating against the police, published stills from this first video of Tomlinson on their front pages.

All the stills were emblazoned with the words 'guardian.co.uk' because - yes - the Guardian burned its logo on to the video footage of Tomlinson's collapse, effectively claiming his demise as its own and using the shocking videos to promote its commitment to New Media.

As one blogger said: "The Ian Tomlinson video [has] spread the Guardian brand across the media". And far from feeling a little red-faced about being seen to promote its brand on the back of a man's death, the Guardian website actually linked to that blog post.

What about the others who have died at the hands of the police in recent years?You can tell that this is something other than journalism - something other than a search for truth and understanding - because many of the media outlets publishing semi-snuff photos of Tomlinson's collapse and getting hot under the collar about police brutality said barely a word when people were killed by police in the past.

They said little about Shiji Lapite, Brian Douglas, Ibrahima Sey - just a few of the forgotten, mainly ethnic individuals killed by cops over the past 15 to 20 years.

Some will say this is because we didn't see those deaths; there was no 'citizen reporting' or mobile phone footage showing the moment those men collapsed.

Yet just because there is grainy footage of Tomlinson's death, that doesn't mean the media have to show it again and again. Journalism is not about vomiting forth every base detail and photograph of every tragedy that occurs; journalism is about interrogation, analysis, judgment, contextualisation.

In the Tomlinson case, all of those things have been sacrificed in favour of liberal titillation, in favour of a new kind of gruesome death-watching. Yes, questions should be asked about what happened on 1 April, just as questions should have been asked about earlier police killings. But instead, all we’ve been given is the low theatrics of the Ian Tomlinson Death Spectacle.

This is what the late JG Ballard might have labelled an "atrocity exhibition". And Tomlinson, as well as the viewing and reading public, deserves better.