I didn’t see the episode of 48 Hours Investigates which showed a photocopy of pictures of paramedics trying to save Diana’s life, but I did see the story on the CBS evening news which responded to it. The story briefly reported on some of the comments made by the press and Blair and then defended the piece. Their defense was basically that while the Brit publicly said it was repulsive, they privately wanted to see it, and that anything the British Press said was basically the pot calling the kettle black.
As to the first, unless someone has a poll somewhere that shows that the British public wants to see these pictures, I don’t see how they can make this claim. As to the second defense, I don’t see how the bad behavior of the British Press makes your bad behavior any better.
By the way here is a link to one of the articles about the flap. Personally I didn’t find the pictures terribly offensive, but then again I’ve never understood the obsession about this story in the first place.
Their defense, however seemed a little dumb to me.
Neither here nor there. Not even in IMHO or GD :rolleyes:
The news likes to put dead people on TV because many people like to see dead people on TV and sponsors don’t care what’s on TV as lon as many eyes are watching. Do the math.
Is it any worse than seeing civilian contractors mutilated and hanging from a bridge? How about a GI corpse being dragged through the streets? How about one of a jillion “faces of Death” style car crash in fictional or reality cop shows?
I admired Di as much as I admire anybody, even Mother Theresa. She was a human, and seemed always to demand treatment as such. No less human are the casualties of war or the common everyday casualties of gang/police violence, cancer, etc. etc. etc.
CBS wasn’t wrong to show the pictures. They were just giving the people what they want. If they *weren’t *then I would expect to see less of this kind of thing in the future.
Hence the spate of Neville Chamberlain broadcasts of late.
But I want more small-breasted thrity-somethings prancing in front of the camera. Where do I fit into all of this?
Small humor aside, I had the fabulous Di revelation running in background while I did my laundry last night What I got a kick out of was the lead-in teases said, “We’re going to blow the lid off this case!”, and the show said, “No big deal. We think she died in a car wreck.”
If they had been available right after the crash, maybe, but now? What possible purpose for dragging them out now (other than their own publicity)? It’s just another cheap attempt to increase their ratings.
The pictures were not that bad, nor were they terribly graphic. They were, however, the photos of a woman’s dying moments. The photos in no way were necessary to the story, as far as I could determine. They were basically irrelevant; no one ever denied that the French tried to help Di in her last moments, as best they could.
In short, CBS drummed up publicity for its show by generating controversy, and then chose a rather puerile defense for this action – “Well, the British press does this kinda thing all the time, and you just ask those Brits, they REALLY want to see those pictures…” – a defense that doesn’t really defend the rather venal nature of CBS’ actions, even if it’s true.
I lost most of my respect for CBS when they hung Jeffrey Wigand out to dry. This week has pretty much cleaned out any respect I may have had for the Tiffany Network’s news division.
It’s all about the money and ratings, folks. Make no mistake.