I may be mistaken, but I could swear that back in the 70s, (I think), a woman (I think) committed suicide on the air, completely unexpectedly, and to the shock of thousands of viewers. It happened somewhere in the south, (Fla, I think), and she was, I believe, a news reporter of some kind. I wonder if any of you know anything about this. I have looked, but because I don’t know the first thing about the case, I couldn’t get too far. At least, kindly let me know if I am imagining all of this.
You aren’t imagining it. Was a news anchor who, during the live broadcast, said something to the effect of “and now, the first on-camera live suicide,” and ate a bullet, right then and there.
The tape still exists, too.
I THINK it was during the seventies. Not sure of the exact time frame.
And the best-known example of on-air suicide was when R. Budd Dwyer ate a gun on live TV. That’s on the page, too, and I mention it because it’ll probably pop up as a question if this thread grows much longer.
So: R. Budd Dwyer. Pennsylvania state treasurer. .357 revolver. 22 January 1987. Preserved on film forever.
Hasn’t there been some dispute as to whether the Dwyer footage was ever actually aired?
I don’t know why there is any dispute. The footage was most definately aired, and the TV station took a lot of flak for it. Later news broadcasts that day did not include the complete footage.
IIRC, Dwyer was at a news conference, but was not live on television (maybe that’s where the dispute came from). The footage was aired very shortly after the incident happened, but not live.
There has to be a video of the pizza bank robber blowing up. There were at least 20 video cameras on him at the time. I haven’t seen it.
We’ve discussed this in several threads. Dwyer’s suicide was not shown live.
What’s interesting about this is that according to Snopes, Chubbock announced it was an attempted suicide; this might mean she didn’t mean to kill herself but was hoping the bullet wouldn’t succeed. IOW, “Here’s the first on-air suicide!” versus “Here’s me attempting to kill myself; hope I don’t succeed!”
Or not…
BTW, even though Dwyer’s suicide wasn’t shown live, it was shown on the news that night, per the Snopes article linked above.
Yow! Thanks a lot the info, guys. I’d love to see those clips. As much as I hate to admit it, Warhol was right. Some people will do anything for attention.
You don’t shoot yourself in the head at point-blank range if you want to fail. If she said ‘attempted,’ she was probably just acknowledging that sometimes people manage to survive even that.
Well, maybe you would if you were a bit unhinged from reality, as in “I’m not sure if this will work, but I want people to look at me…”
I thought the thread title meant “regarding air suicide”
Well, if she was hoping that it wouldn’t succeed, then it isn’t an attempted suicide. Maybe she was just steeped in the news culture of ultra-hedging (“the alledged suspect”). She could not know at the time that it would be a suicide, but she did know it was an attempted suicide.
But it could have been a half-hearted attempt… 
As it happens, I was taking a Journalism class at Penn State at the time of the Dwyer suicide. The teacher walked into class with copies of the AP photos of the before, during and after shots hot off the wires, and used them for an in-class discussion of the issues involved with running such photos as part of a story. An interesting discussion, although I’m not sure waving such photos in front of an unprepared class of undergraduates was the best thing to do…