I’ll preface this rant with a short story:
A few days ago, my friend/boss had a little problem at his house. It seems that someone decided to break in and rob him. They had his girlfriend tied to a chair. They held a gun to her head.
They wanted money. My friend returned to his house and saw the assailant attempting to load his girl into her car, apparently to kidnap her, though his true motive is unclear to me. No one was hurt, and the police are investigating. Good stuff.
What really pisses me the fuck off is my mother calling me, saying " I just heard Bob on the news, it was a 911 tape! What happened?"
Now I realize that people have a right to know what goes on in thier negihborhood. If my neighbor got robbed, I’d want to know about it. That’s news. What I don’t care to hear on the news is my friend on the phone with a 911 dispatcher pleading for his life, crying, begging that the intruder spare his life and let his girlfriend go. That’s not fucking news. A man pleading for his life does not need to be broadcast to everyone in the goddamn county.
If I ever catch the little rectum chomping jizz junkie who leaked the fucking 911 tape, I’ll break my foot off so deep in his ass his mom will be limping…
And to the worthless ass zit who decided it was a good idea to rob someone that I consider to be family: You had better start praying to god that the fucking cops catch your ass and keep you well out of sight, because if I ever see you without police protection, I’ll shred your ass with a cheese grater…
OK, I feel a little better. Not the best I’ve done, for obvious reasons (see the fish hook thread, soon to come), but relieving, nonetheless…
In the UK, caution is always taken to inform relatives of death/injury/tragedy etc before names and identities of victims are ever released. In the rare cases where someone learns via a TV news report that their child drowned/parent was killed, there is always a HUGE apology.
And I agree- I personally find it sickening that you can’t just get the news- the facts of what happened- without this kind of melodrama mixed it. There are moments in one’s life that should not be displayed, such as moments of extreme duress (a 911 call), times of mourning (weeping at a funeral), and other private emotional times. To show that stuff on the news or in the paper makes me sick.
The story can easily be conveyed without that personal detail being exploited for ratings. Wake up, news media.
I find it highly doubtful that such a tape was leaked. (For local news, I doubt that there would be any sort of financial incentive to doing so that would even moderately compare to losing one’s job.) Jonathan Chance is most likely correct.
Tell everyone you know to NOT lean forward on their seats when the mic is shoved in the widows face.
Tell everyone you know to NOT tune in when they hear that channel 11 is doing a feature on ‘Spicy Foods the enhance your breasts’ (this is NOT made up. I saw that one in LA over the weekend.)
Tell everyone you know to STOP tuning into so-called ‘News Magazine’ shows like 20/20 and 60 Minutes. Whatever they once were…they’re not now.
Ratings means dollars. The only way to change the system is to vote with your eyes.
Some years ago, a Maryland ‘reporter’ jammed his microphone in the face of a man who had just had one of his children killed, asking “how he felt”. The man kicked the ‘reporter’ square in the slats, hard enough to send him rolling down a hill. The berieved father was heard to say “Now you know”. The whole thing was captured by the cameraman.
I’m all in favor of using this as a litmus test for “reportable news”: If the reporter feels it’s important enough to get kicked in the crotch over, then it’s airworthy.
The problem with your litmus test for news stories and two bit local reporter should be willing to get kicked in the nads over any story. I mean, this story about the lost, 2 legged, blind dog that walked 50000 miles home to its owner may very well help them make it to the ‘big time’. Associate reporter on the daily show.
I’m going to ask TheOtherOne, respectfully, for some more details, i.e., the station that ran the 911 tape, date the story aired and date of the incident.
From the way you’re telling it, it sounds as if the 911 tape was broadcast shortly after the event itself, and while it’s true that such tapes are released following a public records request, it doesn’t often happen so quickly after an event, leading me to believe that someone inside the 911 center leaked the tape without a formal request being made.
You can debate the news value of such tapes (I think it’s pretty dubious), but I think some additional details are warranted here before we go bashing the media once again.
And, yeah, the time factor does matter here. Broadcast the tape just after the event itself and it seems a little too ratings-driven. However, I can see including in a report brief portions of that tape as they are introduced during trial, because it serves to put the severity of the crime into perspective.
I ranted about something very similar to this way back when I was a newbie here. In our local newspaper (and I will say that Canadian journalism is usually more sensitive and less sensational than American journalism) there was a front-page, blown-up close-up picture of a grieving parent that had just found out their child was dead. This picture was like a punch in the stomach; I read the story, I knew the parent was absolutely cut up inside; I didn’t need to see a picture of the parent in mid-strangled sob. What was the point of publishing a picture like that? It felt very intrusive on a private grief to me.
I suspect that there are times when the media can be your friend. It seems there have been instances where a person had no place to turn with a problem, and the media actually helped. But the scales seem to show it tipping the other way more often than not.
The problem is that different people have different responses to the media when it comes to time of grief.
For example, when Princess Diana died, we were sent to do a story on the condolence books. There was a long queue of people, many crying. We very sensitively asked individuals if they would like to speak a few words. Some shook their heads and turned away.
Others actively approached us and asked to be interviewed, they wanted to speak on camera to share their love for Diana and grief at her death. We didn’t force anyone onto camera that didn’t want to be there, but we gave those that did a platform to express themselves.
In the case that featherlou mentions - yes, to many this will seem insensitive. However what it does do is hammer home to other just how abominable, how tragic the senseless loss of another human being is. It is a chance to share grief. I do think in such a case the bereaved person should be asked for their consent to be put in the paper.
The other thing with the media - and free speech in general - is that you sometimes have to accept the bad with the good. Journalists are only able to expose corruption if they are legally allowed to invade to some degree what most of us might consider the moral right to privacy of individuals. It is a highly tricky balance to get right. Where the media fucks up, it should freely and willingly admit its mistakes and offer apology/amends (as is now legally enshrined in the UK 1996 defamation act). But on the whole I would rather consume -and work for - a free press than a muffled one.