Should Death Be on the Air?
February 12, 2011 - by
Two readers strenuously objected to WRAL’s decision (and WTVD’s apparent intention) not to televise the bloody ending of last week’s hostage-taking in Cary
One, referring to WRAL’s owner, wrote:
“Jim Goodmon’s parochial thinking is what will eventually cause the demise of the traditional media. Today, we want unfiltered news and we have the technical capability to find it in thousands of places ourselves and make our own choices. We don’t want an editor or incompetent news reader telling what we will see or what we should think. In fact, I don’t need to watch Jim Goodmon’s newscast because his website tells me everything several hours earlier.
“Goodmon has a tool that makes him unique – a helicopter that can bring us a view that we cannot get anywhere else. That will help him remain relevant in the news biz – if he uses it.”
The other wrote:
”I think they were irresponsible because all they did was show the part where a woman gets dragged out at gunpoint. I’m QUITE sure that I will never be in a situation where I am killed by snipers for taking hostages in a bank, but now I have a pretty vivid visual that I will remember every time I go into a bank. Could I be the next victim? Where’s the “closure” in this, if they were going to show the whole thing up until the moment of closure???
”On a regular basis on their broadcasts, they go into graphic detail about sexual predators and child abuse cases, but when there’s REAL NEWS with REAL FOOTAGE that might prove to be a public service by 1. demonstrating to the general public that the police do their job the right way and 2. demonstrating to idiot potential bank-robbers out there that there is a pretty good chance they’ll end up dead if they pull a stunt like that….
“It’s NEWS. It happened, and with all the other crap (Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, The Doctors,) that Channel 5 puts on the air, I think it’s a tad hypocritical for them to sanitize and judge which parts of an event we are capable of “handling.” Perhaps they could start having a G-Rated newscast, and an R-Rated newscast.
“And most importantly to me: they sure didn’t seem to give a damn about the poor woman who was being dragged out by her neck with a gun pointed at her head. That was a hell of a lot more upsetting to me than seeing that twisted SOB get what he had coming. Consequences, people!!!”
I emailed David Crabtree, WRAL’s co-anchor, to get his point of view. His response:
“Yes…we do cover stories of child abuse and sexual predators…rape…but we would NEVER show these crimes in progress. The taking of a human life should never, knowingly be shown. Yes, it may be part of a story and it will be reported and examined as well as the welfare of the hostages who had a gun held to their heads…however…to knowingly show a killing. Why? Deterrent? I see no evidence of that whatsoever.
“WRAL-TV also has a policy to not show certain things on TV even if we have the video. Again it’s simply not appropriate to show such things as a rape or a fatal shooting. While we will report these tragic and unfortunate incidents, we will not show them at anytime—and certainly not during the dinner hour when children are watching.”
I don’t know where I come down on this. After all, we might have ended up watching the gunman kill his hostage. But I confess that – since WTVD aired the shooting scene (by mistake, the station said) and someone put the video on YouTube – I watched it. You can watch it here, if you’re so inclined.
Should Death Be on the Air?
February 12, 2011/
Two readers strenuously objected to WRAL’s decision (and WTVD’s apparent intention) not to televise the bloody ending of last week’s hostage-taking in Cary
One, referring to WRAL’s owner, wrote:
“Jim Goodmon’s parochial thinking is what will eventually cause the demise of the traditional media. Today, we want unfiltered news and we have the technical capability to find it in thousands of places ourselves and make our own choices. We don’t want an editor or incompetent news reader telling what we will see or what we should think. In fact, I don’t need to watch Jim Goodmon’s newscast because his website tells me everything several hours earlier.
“Goodmon has a tool that makes him unique – a helicopter that can bring us a view that we cannot get anywhere else. That will help him remain relevant in the news biz – if he uses it.”
The other wrote:
”I think they were irresponsible because all they did was show the part where a woman gets dragged out at gunpoint. I’m QUITE sure that I will never be in a situation where I am killed by snipers for taking hostages in a bank, but now I have a pretty vivid visual that I will remember every time I go into a bank. Could I be the next victim? Where’s the “closure” in this, if they were going to show the whole thing up until the moment of closure???
”On a regular basis on their broadcasts, they go into graphic detail about sexual predators and child abuse cases, but when there’s REAL NEWS with REAL FOOTAGE that might prove to be a public service by 1. demonstrating to the general public that the police do their job the right way and 2. demonstrating to idiot potential bank-robbers out there that there is a pretty good chance they’ll end up dead if they pull a stunt like that….
“It’s NEWS. It happened, and with all the other crap (Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, The Doctors,) that Channel 5 puts on the air, I think it’s a tad hypocritical for them to sanitize and judge which parts of an event we are capable of “handling.” Perhaps they could start having a G-Rated newscast, and an R-Rated newscast.
“And most importantly to me: they sure didn’t seem to give a damn about the poor woman who was being dragged out by her neck with a gun pointed at her head. That was a hell of a lot more upsetting to me than seeing that twisted SOB get what he had coming. Consequences, people!!!”
I emailed David Crabtree, WRAL’s co-anchor, to get his point of view. His response:
“Yes…we do cover stories of child abuse and sexual predators…rape…but we would NEVER show these crimes in progress. The taking of a human life should never, knowingly be shown. Yes, it may be part of a story and it will be reported and examined as well as the welfare of the hostages who had a gun held to their heads…however…to knowingly show a killing. Why? Deterrent? I see no evidence of that whatsoever.
“WRAL-TV also has a policy to not show certain things on TV even if we have the video. Again it’s simply not appropriate to show such things as a rape or a fatal shooting. While we will report these tragic and unfortunate incidents, we will not show them at anytime—and certainly not during the dinner hour when children are watching.”
I don’t know where I come down on this. After all, we might have ended up watching the gunman kill his hostage. But I confess that – since WTVD aired the shooting scene (by mistake, the station said) and someone put the video on YouTube – I watched it. You can watch it here, if you’re so inclined.