A newly surfaced video of what appears to be a Kane'ohe Bay Marine tossing a puppy into a ravine in Iraq prompted some extensive discussion not just in our newsroom last week but at other local news organizations as well.

Early Monday afternoon, the Marine Corps base at Kane'ohe sent out a statement that said it was investigating the authenticity of the video, which showed a smiling Marine holding a puppy by the scruff of its neck and then hurling it off a steep hillside.

The Advertiser, The Associated Press and local television stations had to determine whether to use the name of the person identified by a fellow Marine in the video as "Motari."

A Marine spokesman confirmed that a Lance Cpl. David Motari was attached to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment at Kane'ohe Bay and was part of a group recently stationed in Iraq. The spokesman also said that the Marine Corps base was investigating the videotape. Motari's name was also widely circulated on the Internet. Based on those factors, The Advertiser chose to name him.

The Associated Press, on the other hand, has not.

"We decided not to use his name because it appeared a possible crime was being committed, the name uttered on the video was unclear, the Marine Corps said it could not identify him, and there were several questions surrounding the video and its authenticity — whether it was a real puppy, whether it was alive, who took the video, whether it was edited and how it got on the Internet site," said Dave Briscoe, the AP's news editor in Honolulu. "We did report the fact there were reports of his name and age on the Internet."

For local television stations, perhaps the bigger question was what portion of the video, if any, to broadcast. YouTube had the full video on its site all day Monday and Tuesday (we linked to it with a "caution, graphic content" warning), but it had been removed from the site by Wednesday. Others have since reposted it and thousands of comments have been attached, some threatening the life of Motari and his family in Washington state.

None of our local television stations showed the entire video.

"We did not feel it was appropriate to show the entire clip on the air," said Lori Silva, news director at KHON2. "If people wanted to see it, it was available on YouTube."

KHNL News8 didn't air anything about the incident on Monday because the video's authenticity was in question, said news director Dan Dennison.

"In our view, it could have been akin to the guy who would dupe the media in New York by fabricating some sort of fake event or incident to see what kind of coverage he would get," he said.

The following day, the station ran the first few seconds of the video — up until the Marine's attempts to throw the dog. KHNL also did a second story talking to experts and students about the proliferation of offensive videos on YouTube and the following day, an interview with a local attorney about the potential liability for YouTube's showing objectionable videos, including a gang rape.

A lengthy discussion took place at KITV about how to play the story, but the conversation about whether to run the entire video was fairly brief.

"We felt that even with a strong viewer warning, the entire video was too disturbing," said Tod Pritchard, news director at KITV. "We also decided that a verbal description of what happened was adequate." Pritchard said KITV issued a strong warning to viewers that the information they were about to hear was disturbing and that KITV would not be showing the full video.

KGMB9 also froze the video at the point the Marine was about to toss the dog "because the story — and the emotion behind it — could be told without revealing the most graphic portion of the clip," said Chris Archer, the news director.

KGMB used Motari's name because the Kane'ohe Marine spokesman confirmed that someone with the same last name mentioned in the video was stationed here (and in Iraq) and the incident was under investigation.

Pritchard of KITV said the station did not name Motari because it didn't have official confirmation but did report that the Marine in question was based in Hawai'i. Dennison said KHNL also did not name him because there was no official or independent verification that Motari was the Marine in the video.

"For me it points to the risk we all face as users and journalists in putting credence in a lot of what is on the Internet," Dennison said. "I think it is particularly an issue for so-called 'digital natives' or young people who've grown up with the Internet as their primary source of communications and information; they can't or don't always distinguish between what is fact and what's fiction."

Like it or not, this story gained tremendous national and international traction because of the Internet. On www.honoluluadvertiser.com, various stories about the incident have attracted more than 80,000 hits since our first post Monday. About 150,000 watched the video over two days on YouTube before it was pulled.

Mark Platte is senior vice president/editor of The Advertiser. Reach him at mplatte@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8080.