You’ve all seen them from time to time. There was one today. A couple of kids survived when four of their friends fell through thin ice. On the Today Show, Katie Cholic interviewed them and at one point asked one of the kids how he felt, when the boy he was trying to hold onto drowned. The kid broke down and she told him not to worry about answering, but then asked how he felt about being on the ice and possibly falling through himself.
ENOUGH, ASSHOLES!
I get so angry at those interviews right after a tragic incident.
Reporter: Sir, how did you feel when you found your wife’s severed head in the toilet?
How the fuck do they think people feel? Are they all just waiting and hoping somebody will respond like-
Survivor: Well I was so relieved. I’d been enduring a loveless marriage and now she’s gone. I have to tell you Katie, I felt like dancing.
I saw this interview. I thought Katie Couric (sp?) was VERY out of line. What the fuck could you possibly be thinking of, asking a little boy how he felt when his friend died in his arms?! Poor kid.
Although I also can’t say I think much of whoever thought it would be a good idea to allow the kids to go on national morning television a day or two after the accident anyway. Couldn’t they, like, have the police that handled the incident on or something?
Katie’s been on a roll lately - they had her interviewing the head of a task force tracking these two jail escapees on a multi state crime binge, one of the two had just been captured.
Katie : “you warn that suspect #2 should be considered ‘armed & dangerous’ ?”
Head of Task Force: “Yes, he should be.”
Katie : “why just one of the two?”
Head of Task Force after a moment “the other one is in custody.”
[hijack] The saddest irony is that it was an accident that could’ve been prevented – IF the parents had been watching their kids AND if the kids had heeded the verbal warnings BEFORE venturing onto the ice…
trying not to get herself riled up over this [/hijack]
Interviewing grieving people, especially on national TV, is just plain sick. What I can’t understand is why they’d do it. Do they get paid or something?
One of these days I’d like to see something like the below happen (Assuming reporter is male).
Reporter: Your entire family and every friend were slowly cooked alive by a twisted freak while you were forced to watch, how does that make you feel?
Victim: Can I ask you a question first?
Reporter: Er… Okay.
Victim: knees reporter in the balls
Reporter: rolling on ground groaning in pain
Victim: How does that make you feel?
Yeah, I know, it’s a pipe dream to think something like that would actually happen, but it is an entertaining thought.
Recently our local news showed footage of a woman ariving at her home that had burned to the ground. I think one or more of her children were inside. Maybe her husband was supposed to be watching them and he went to the store or something. I thought it was in very poor taste to show this woman so grief stricken she could barely stand on her feet.
I change the station as quickly as possible when something like this is being shown. It makes me so sad, I do not wish to see it. Also, when they announce they will show some kind of animal cruelty story, I grab the remote. I hate watching people or animals suffer. I know some of this stuff needs to be shown. Most of the time I think the reporters are just trying to shock more than the competition. It is sick.
My friend almost went through one of these. His little sister fell off a crossing bridge and some reporters nearby got a little antsy. Apparently it ended with him throwing a rock or something at them in a rage. It didn’t hit, he said, but it got the desired “piss-off” effect.
I saw the interview on TODAY also. I fault the person who decided thta it was a good idea to have an interview with children right after such a horrific event.
The accident will haunt these children for the rest of their lives. The children haven’t even had time to begin processing what happened. The one that was crying just tore my heart out. I think that the memory of crying on national television is going to add to the trauma – especially if other children of that age make fun of him.
I desperately hope nothing awful befalls me, but if it does, I’ve got a stock response ready to go.
“How do you think I feel, you insensitive toad? Go take your little microphone and find some actual facts to report instead of earning your blood money sticking your nose into people’s tragedies. I honestly don’t know how you people look yourself in the eye in the mirror every morning. Walk away.”
Note: No profanity. In other words, someone critical of the industry could grab it off a feed and use it in a documentary if they wanted, without bleeping anything.
I just hope I remember it when wracked with grief and pain.
I’m so glad to see this thread! I was thinking about posting the same thing myself.
I saw that very same interview with Katie Couric this morning and I was horrified.
That poor kid!!
She was waaaay out of line with that, I think. At the very least, she should have just ended the interview there at the point he burst into tears. It was already tasteless enough to be interviewing those kids in the first place. Her further questioning just added insult to injury.
Ugh.
I briefly dated a girl whose sister died in a major plane crash. When a reporter from one of the major newsweeklies (Newsweek, IIRC) asked her how she felt about the tragedy, she snapped “How the hell do you think I feel?” They printed it.
The day we buried my older son, some dipshit reporter from one of the local network affiliates called to interview me. Since I wasn’t home, she left a message on my machine to which I never bothered to respond.
Hey, bitch, the funeral arrangements were in the friggin’ obituary. Calling someone the day their son is buried isn’t going to score any points.
Since when is “How do you feel?” newsworthy? When I turn on the news, I don’t give a flying fig how anyone feels. I want to know the facts. Period. Whether Sally Citizen just won the Nobel Prize for Greatest Person in the Whole Wide World or just lost her home, family, and puppy into a sinkhole, her feeling aren’t news. Period.
First-- don’t watch. If you watch, you’re part of the goddamn problem.
Second-- Write a letter. Not email. Not a phone call. (For the most part, we dismiss whiners on the phone.) Write a letter to your local affiliate, and to the corporate headquarters, saying that you have no interest in watching such tripe.
I don’t like interviewing grieving people, but as long as people like you keep watching, I will. If you stop watching, I get to stop too.
