Why was the image on the left so objectionable to our readers, but not the one on the right?
View Moscow videos. Warning – they are quite graphic.
Connecticut fatal crash & comments
Previous coverage & discussion of cameras at incident scenes can be found here, here, here, here, here, here & here
On Thursday, I posted extensive raw video from a tragic fire in Moscow that occurred on October 2, 2007. It was under the headline, "Warning: Videos titled 'Fire with Chaos in Moscow' are quite graphic". The two clips were shot by someone riding with one of the first group of what appear to be firefighters as they arrive on the scene of a burning office building. Bodies are already on the ground and many others are jumping to flee a fire on the fourth floor of the five story building. The fire left nine people (described as students) dead and almost 50 injured.
So far I've received 23 comments. Each describes the same thoughts I had while viewing this very difficult video. These include how lucky we are to have the level of fire protection we do in the U.S. and that this video should be required viewing for any political leader who thinks it is okay to gut fire protection standards (including sprinklers) and funding for fire departments. Others commented on the bravery and ingenuity of the bystanders who worked so hard to save the lives of others. Essentially, readers got out of this what I hoped they would.
But I am surprised by what is missing from the comments. This video showed some people dying. Others as they were critically injured. We are not talking about a video shot at a vantage point some distance from the scene. This is up close and personal. It's quite graphic. There is no electronic masking of the faces or sheets over bodies.
Despite the raw and graphic nature of the clips no one has complained. No STATter911.com readers blasted me for posting the video. No one criticized the photographer for shooting it.
There are some very good arguments for not showing this video. They all raced through my mind as I debated whether to hit the publish button. After posting it, I prepared for the nastygrams. They never arrived.
Contrast this reaction to the outrage directed at a videographer from Connecticut and at me after I posted his video of a fatal crash and car fire on I-95 last December. In that video there's no victim, no body, no one in their final moments on this earth, no blood and no gore. It was just a burning car with firefighters and police doing their jobs at the scene.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, please take a moment to watch the video and review some of the comments. You will find that many people believe the man who shot the burning car is the lowest of the low. Others had a similar opinion of me for posting it and defending the photographer. There are close to 100 comments. The large majority of them extremely negative because someone dared to shoot a burning car where a woman died. The common theme is that we have no right to intrude on someone's final moments by taking pictures of a vehicle in flames. There are also another 50 or 60 comments from me where I reply and challenge each of the critics.
So how does a video with no graphic content generate such outrage, while no one seems to care about a video with close-ups of people taking their dying breaths?
If you read my replies to the comments about the car fire video you'll find the answers. They explain why I really shouldn't be surprised about the lack of passion over the Moscow video.
One of the most significant reasons is this. There is an authority figure in the form of a Connecticut State Trooper in the car fire video. Without warning, he confronts the freelance news photographer, orders him to shut off his camera and leave the scene. The trooper is angry and questions the ethics of the videographer. The cameraman didn't break any laws. He was standing with the general public at a respectable distance, out of the way of first responders. People naturally side with law enforcement, whether the officer is right or wrong. It's human.
But there is something bigger than law enforcement at play here. It's hatred of the press.
Read the comments closely and you'll find the real agenda. People who stand up for our country and its Constitution are willing to gut the First Amendment. Anything goes. Just stop those awful press people from shooting pictures of victims.
Some readers think cameras should be banned from scenes where there is even the potential for victims. Others want police officers and firefighters to be the gatekeepers. They would give first responders the power to decide when and if it is okay to take pictures.
As for me, I am standing firmly by the idea that the founders of our nation didn't want the decision of what can and can't be published left in the hands of armed and uniformed agents of our government.
There may be another factor at work here. The office building fire is in a foreign land and doesn't involve Americans. It's possible that plays into this. I've seen it happen in TV newsrooms where management would never show an uncovered body from a local disaster, but would frequently broadcast bodies from catastrophes overseas.
But I think the foreign factor is minor compared to a law officer putting a member of the press in his place. Without that confrontation no one is talking about the rights of victims or what a ghoul the photographer is.
I don't just base my theories on the Moscow video. Since the December incident in Connecticut I have posted many pictures and videos showing active scenes where people have died. There have been no complaints. They include the picture below that I posted exactly one week after the I-95 story. It doesn't show a burning car that a woman had been removed from before the image was shot. It shows a burning house with six people still inside. All died. It wasn't shot by a member of the press. It was shot by a firefighter. And guess what? There was no outrage.
Also on STATter911 …
- What gives? No outrage over ghoulish photographers shooting bodies. Has something changed in year since Connecticut trooper blasted cameraman? – December 18, 2011
- Downtown Vincennes, Indiana fire revisited. New video gives better view of fire’s progression & may cast doubt on some of the keyboard sizeups. – December 21, 2011
- Must see video: Moscow plane crash on highway caught on dash-cam. Car hit by pieces of jet. – December 31, 2012
- Must see videos: Collapse of large apartment building in Astrakhan, Russia. At least 8 dead after natural gas explosion. – February 28, 2012
Comments
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Why isn't the Moscow footage an outrage? I think, perhaps Dave, it's ultimately too unreal. It's far-removed, both geography and from what we experience here. Perhaps it's also too over-the-top to be offensive. Just dramatically tragic. Or maybe that's just over-thinking, and the answer is like the classic court definition of offensive material. They can't define it, but they know it when they see it.
I agree there is some of that in play here Mike. But I think what I have experienced as a TV reporter and a blogger tells me the real agenda of hating the news media and wanting to put them in their place is what fuels most of it.
Statter
I agree with you 100% Dave. As a firefighter, I'm always baffled by my brothers who are more focused on disrupting the working press on a scene than they are their assigned duties. I am equally baffled by the number of my brothers who would die for the second amendment, but are quick to suggest that we limit the first amendment just to speech they agree with. It's not the politics in this country that gives me heartburn, it's the hypocracy.
Hawkeye,
I wished I had written that. Very nice. Thanks for the support.
Statter
Our founding fathers never even knew what a video carmera was…this is true. If they HAD seen these videos, I truly believe their first thoughts would have been sympathy for those affected…then, maybe, they would have thought to themselves…"maybe we can learn from this". Maybe we ALL should act the same way. If a news channel overplays such videos and exploits the situation, I will turn it off….this is MY call…and my RIGHT. Keep doing what you are doing Dave . One sprinkler……
I agree that the best thing you can do if you don’t like something is not support it. Most TV stations have modified what they show (there aren’t that many that will even show body bags these days) because the public let them know what they found objectionable.
Statter
Recently the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire passed and a number of stories and photographs of that terrible event were shown on fire service and other sites. Some of the photos showed the bodies of young women on the sidewalk where they had fallen to their deaths escaping from the fire eight floors above. A common thread was the attention that this event brought to labor practices and fire safety. It seems that at that time the outrage was directed at the business owners who allowed this to happen, not the photographers who recorded it for all time. The recent articles also noted the progress that was made towards worker safety following the fire.
Ritt,
If you look back at a couple of those links with the story you will see a discussion of the importance of some of the great fire photographs of the past. Good points.
Statter
generally speaking, most people don't even know exactly what they're pissed off about when they're pissed off. people are terribly irrational creatures.
BOM,
They call that COD- compulsive outrage disorder. Very common among those who OD on Internet forums.
Statter
Dave, you are 100% correct. The authoritarian impulse and lack of respect for not only rights but posterity (someone above mentioned the invaluably important Triangle pictures) is strong in your readers.
Dead nuts on Dave! I had a chuckle remembering a conversation several years back with a young Lieutenant who was adamant that the press should request permission to print his image in the paper (scene photos) and more recently, with the same guy that anything shot outside the fire line tape is fair game (he wanted to limit zoom lenses!.. Keep it real Dave
Dave, you've posted this on a firefighting site…most of us have seen fire death, bodies mutilated in cars, suicides, jumpers, still births, homocides, and bodies otherwise mutilated-mangled and people screaming in pain..etc etc etc. You posted it was a graphic video…we watched it knowing that.
It only seems that there is outcry about the press is when a video is posted where the press is banned from a site…I think people on here are sometimes NOT free thinkers, but are guided in their thought process by others (sometimes including you)
Most people on here are abunch of sheep who are easily led….or they "pile on the rabbit, pile on the rabbit"
I also believe that most responders who do the old, hold the tarp up cause this is nasty, are just doing what the generations before them did and this is all they know.
Either way Dave, I think your bringing such topics up on your site, while sometimes enrage…also makes people think and also teaches…good job Dave
Surely others have hinted at this but I question the "outrage" you speak of. When people post you get to see the IP address(why yes he does) and you can get a sense of who is posting and how often. Arguably most of the people who post are part of a small group who post "everywhere." I think they also tend to be people who feel limited agency and the anonymous forum is the only place where they have a voice. When that voice is finally given a forum it is more vomit than thought, more invective that reflective, and certainly not a good measure of how the masses of public safety personnel or the population at large feels. To borrow from Jose Ortega y Gasset, "barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made." The internet forums tend towards the barbaric for just that reason.
The difference between the video of the trooper and the fire in Russia is the same difference between the nudes hanging in the Louvre and the magazines in that corner store with the bars on the window. We can spend more thanone dissertation and many more court cases to refine the definition but it simply boils down to this. Both cases ( attempted video of accident scene and video of the Russion fire) are offensive and they are offensive for the same reason. They are offensive because neither of them manages to capture the obscenity without being obscene, neither of them is capable of transcending base vulgarity.
In both cases you get the sense that the picture taker is removed from the subject matter in a way that prevents empathy, in a way that sets up the viewer and the viewed as apart from one another. Neither photographer is better than the other.
It is possible to photograph a scene of abject horror without being vulgar but it is hard to do and it is typically not the domain of the journalist. It is even harder to video a scene of horror without vulgarity because there is sometime about the temporal aspect of the video, the immediacy, that inserts the viewer, without the temporal distance of a still photograph, and that insertion into something real is the primary mechanism of the detachment. It is too much to bear and there is so little time to reflect.
The beauty of the Mona Lisa it has been argued is not in what she offers, but rather in how see offers it. I too have stood in the Louvre looking at her, taking a cruise around the building and then coming back to her to find her changed. What she does so sublimely is to reflect back to the viewer some portion of themselves, even as the viewer's mood and mindset changes.
A media cameraman has a job to do, capture a record for the media outlet, and the media outlet has a job to do, sell advertisments to ensure the continuance of the media outlet. Arguably there may have been a time where the job of the media was to inform and to challenge, to bring to light human injustice. I no longer think that is true. Today I think that they too have let go of any noble calling and have become as vulgar as the rest of us, if only to compete.
As for the common man with his handycam, the video he takes is simply a mirror of himself. He has been given free reign to "capture" the world and the clumsy vulgarity of his attempts belies the subtitly of his mental and moral corrosion.
Mr. Statter, I did not spell check, there are mistakes in diction and in logic here, but I think I have made a couple of valid points. That is not to say that your forum does not serve a purpose. I am sure that it serves a purpose, though I continued to be baffled at what that purpose is. If you intend to have a great laugh at how silly we are as a profession, then you are brilliant. If you intend to show us to ourselves, then you have failed. You failed because the people who can look in the mirror don't visit the site (at least the comments section) and those who visit the comments cannot see. If they could see they would be so appalled as to gouge their eyes out. That leave one final question. How can I write this extended drivel and take this position of moral superiority in the same comments section I count as so much drivel? There is the Socratic paradox and then there is me.
Great response. Louvre it.
The Socratic paradox. Is that the same as having your cake and eating it, also? I have long-forgotten the content of my college logic course, if that's where the Big S. was featured.
Maybe that's the dual purpose of this blog. Brillant comedy through a cracked mirror?
SIde note Dave….Ia lso think most firefighters who watched this were more focused on the crappy job the FD did and the crappy equipment they have…..and the amazing circus rescue efforts by citizens….that trumped the burn victims shots.
Another note—to the guys who, like me, were were too reminded of the events of 9/11…..others feel your pain and though many of us may not have a personal connection to those who died that day, we hope that those of youwho do may find comfort and internal peace. May the pain you feel inside subside …. I'm sure sometimes its overwhelming..still to this day.
There may be another factor at work here. The office building fire is in a foreign land and doesn't involve Americans. It's possible that plays into this.
I think it's more of a factor than you're giving it credit for, Dave. I think an identical video of an identical incident in the US would get you exactly or more than what you got from the CT video. I think we as Americans (and I will confess to being guilty of it) mentally de-humanize people in other countries- ESPECIALLY those we perceive to have a lower standard of living than ours. One of the ways we in public safety instinctlvely interpret that standard is our own perception of their emergency services. A video like this, showing vastly inferior capabilities than we would expect from the capital city of a significant world power, leads inevitiably to an assumption of near Third World status, despite Russia's actual wealth and world influence- a conclusion by which we are subconsciously "ok" with the deaths we see. If we're ok with it, we're not outraged over seeing it.
Just some thoughts. I'm not saying it's going to make sense, but there it is.
CBEMT,
I have no doubt it is a factor and maybe I even underplayed it. Very honest evaluation.
But when you read the outrage over the Connecticut video which only shows a burning car, it just doesn’t make sense that victims’ rights is the real issue. The picture of a burning home with six dead in it is on U.S. soil. No one cared. Same with a bunch others since then I have posted. It’s a combination of the police can do no wrong element and the hate for the press. How else do you become a ghoul for taking a picture of a burning car with no victim in sight?
Thanks.
Statter
Rabble rablle rabble Dave is the devil…rabble rabble…outrage….rabble rabble…sandwich?…rabble rabble…mmmmph…rabble…
When I first viewed the Moscow footage, I very nearly asked why STATter911 visitors weren't in an uproar over the graphic nature of the footage, but I didn't want to open the proverbial can of worms (that and I thought surely as time went by there would be some expressing their utter disgust).
I do find it curious that there seems to be two distinct standards here. Ironically, the less-graphic footage garnered must outrage, whilst the obviously, sadly graphic footage garnered none.
I don't get it. But, with a pregnant wife five days past her due date, I've got bigger (or is it smaller?) things to worry about.
Dave,
I don't think there is anything obscene in any of these videos, although they are quite graphic. I get the same feeling watching this video as I do watching the Station Nightclub Fire, or listenting to Capt Abts, attempt to escape that Houston Office building. I wold not suggest my 65 year old Mother watch some of these films, nor could I bring myself to watch the whole thing, but I think the obscenity comes in the mind of the viewer. Why are you watching the video? To learn something, get inspired, or to just get some sick kicks?
I think with all these videos, including film from 9/11, The Station Nightclub Fire, other graphic videos, serve as a reminder of the reality of our chosen professsion. Sometimes it's easy to get complacent and forget that we are the ones who have chosen to stand in the gap for the citizens we serve. That at anytime, in any place, your next call could be the alarm of your career. Whether you serve in the FDNY, or in Smalltown, USA, our community depends on us to prevent and mitigate tragides like this. It is our most important duty to prepare ourselves and our equipment, whatever that may mean, to give our citizens the best chance at survival.
If these videos give someone that wake-up call, or gut check to do that training, check that truck, run those laps, then they have done their job, and you have done yours.
As for the haters, "Illegitimi non carborundum." Thanks for all you do.
To paraphrase my Communications 101 professor Bill Galvin, Show it all.
If it is so horrible that people can't tolerate it, maybe they should work harder in the future to prevent it from happening again. Responsibility isn't easy… welcome to a free republic. Why shoud anyone be spared seeing the suffering? Chosing to look away is the easy way out. There is a big difference between documenting something you are not responsible for happening while professionals are already there giving aid and standing idly by taking video or photos while your help could have saved a life. I know very few humans who would take photos before trying to help. But maybe taking that image saves thousands down the road…. The dramatic video of the Station Nightclub fire led to almost immediate strengthening of sprinkler laws where I live. What impact will that have going forward?
And before I get my head handed to me, I am a survivor of a parent's LODD and I was in one of the more graphic videos shown last year on many fire sites (including this one) where tactics were criticized by those who didn't see the whole picture. I'm glad the reporter captured what he observed. It sparked discussion about how to do things better. The fact that three of the first alarm companies were out of service for budgetary reasons significantly impacted operations. You don't know the backstory from watching the video alone in a vacuum, but you get to see the results of that decision.
I have been the focus of media coverage at the most difficult of times and I still say show it all. No ones gets off easy. You want to show respect for the victims, give them the empathy they deserve. Respect their suffering and sacrifice, learn something and make a difference Don't let people die for nothing.
One last thought for those who think it is beneath them to cooperate with the media. If you don't tell your story, you let someone else tell your story for you.
Jason,
I think Professor Galvin is correct. But most TV stations won’t do that. I have mentioned before video from a 1988 DC fire showing firefighters and EMS crews rescuing and reviving kids from a fire. There is no way that most stations would run that today. Standards have changed.
A couple of years ago I linked to video from Korea (it is in one of the links at the top of this story) where there were close ups of unsuccessful attempts to revive a firefighter on a fireground. I was curious about the reaction from the U.S. firefighting community. I expected they would be outraged. I couldn’t imagine a local TV station running that here. I was quite surprised when most people writing in believed that should be shown, so people can understand what it is really like. The writers complained that the news media sanitizes reality.
Thanks for your interesting perspective.
Statter
Dave, I do not understand your headline. What does Donald Trump have to do with this issue?
Also, you have better hair.
I will tell you what he has to do with it: You’re fired Legeros!!!
This same thought crossed my mind when I was watching the vids as well Dave. And a few of the other ones, I was just too preoccupied to say anything at the time.
I don't like the media, but will defend it just as I will the 2nd Amendment. I still think the trooper was flat out wrong, as were the comments that attempted to justify his actions.
There's a reason the first amendment is first and is followed by the second. If gov't attempts to eliminate the freedom of speech, press, to gather, etc, then we have to fall back on our second amendment rights.
Dave,
Question for you. Which is worse? The media outlet's editorial choice not to show something because it will in some way cause a negative reaction by their viewing audience or the public safety official using the dignity of the victim as their moral reasoning (however shortsighted I think it might ultimately be in the long run)?
The media has the luxury of choosing what they and their audience gets to see. The public safety official isn't afforded the luxury of a filtered view.
If the right to use the public's airwaves means providing a general benefit to the community, usually complied with in the form of news presentation, how is the public's interest best served by the media not showing them what actually happens when humans suffer, be it crime, war, fire, accident or natural disaster?
Believe me the public rarely takes our word for it when we tell them how bad decisions, shortcuts and cutbacks can (and do) have consequences.
Jason,
Personally I would love for the news media to show a little more reality so the citizens truly understand the consequences. You make a good point about serving the public’s interest. In reality the outrage by the public that a news media outlet would receive if they showed the raw and graphic stuff is not something many bosses are willing to tolerate.
I have no problem with public safety trying to protect the dignity of a victim if they don’t do so by abusing their power and trampling all over the First Amendment.
If the public and public safety officials want to complain, by all means do so. Let your voice be heard. That is what this right of free speech is all about.
Statter
I think it is a change in our society. I have noticed in my studies for a history degree that up until the Vietnam War it was quite common for the press to show dead or dying soldiers, American and enemy, but with the coming of video and color, scenes of real death and violence are too emotional, whereas ‘reel’ violence is ok. I have to say I am in favor of documentation of emergency scenes, as long as the work of emergency responders is not compromised, and some level of respect toward victims and families is observed. As has been said, let public opinion determine what is appropriate, not some uniformed personnel.
I'm the son of a retired police captain who was a cop's cop, a real honest, stand-up guy. I've always had a deep respect for him and that's why at age 9 when I asked him if I could become a police officer and he told me no I didn't ask why. What I did do was search out a career that would allow me to be on the street and witness police and fire activity. I became a TV news cameraman. The past 25 years have been very rewarding and I've been to hundreds of stories where I've had to balance getting my shots with not upsetting the police and family members. I've been in that same situation as the CT photog, where regardless of my distance and respect level, I became the brunt of an officer's "bad day" or his hatred of the media or perhaps his worry that he'll get in some sort of trouble because of my presence. I've had many, many great dealings with LE, but it sure does suck when my respect for the badge, the hours of volunteer video productions I've produced and dubbed for police and fire departments, and the high ethics I bring to my profession, meet with a jerk. I don't argue because I can't do my job wearing handcuffs. I just move to wherever the new, often imaginary, line is. I've been told to "report to the command post because that is where we are sending all the media" even though the command post is not even within view of the scene. I've been ordered to shoot from beyond the distance that civilians have been allowed to stand. I'll play the game. I'll get whatever shots I can. And I'll just hope the next interaction is better. I do appreciate all the time that Dave Statter has taken to reply to all the media haters. I expect to see anti-media comments in the police blogs and in the on-line newspaper comment sections, but I was surprised to see how many popped up here regarding the CT video. I think that the Russian video does have many of the dynamics at play that have been mentioned like the age of the video, the disconnect of the foreign land, and the bizarre lack of resources near a major institution. While watching the video a few other things caught my attention though like the great job by a few students self-rescuing down the storm pipe, the scary job of the girl holding the jump tarp near the wall who wasn't looking up, and the lack of concern for the presence of the video camera by the cop holding the machine gun. Maybe the cameraman was wearing a bunker coat, but I'd like to think that the cop just wasn't a jerk.
Dave from Chicago
Dave, I'm gonna give you a piece of sage advice management tells us at my place of employment: Just shutup and do your effen job!
And just what is my job oldhead?
So far, that’s the best and only rebuttal to what I wrote. Surely someone can come up with something better than that. Could it be that I am right? Nah … no way.
Statter
I think that the closer an incident is to our society and the reality of what is taking place in our back yard will stir up more emotions with this topic. Moscow is far removed from Washington DC or Orange County Ca. I don’t believe that the anger or outrage of what is being seen is directed at the media or cameraman but more of an expression of sympathy towards the families and friends of those being videotaped in their final moments. The video from 9-11 doesn’t show the graphic footage that was caught on tape that day but I do know that there are a few unedited copies out there and I’m glad to say I have never seen them. If this fire in Moscow was a video of a fire at Georgetown University and the victims were closer to families and friends you would have more negative comments. Bottom line is people don’t want to see bad things happen to people even more so to family and friends and the closer to home you get the move emotions will come out.
Shhh,
I have no doubt there is genuine concern for victims among fire, EMS and police. But forget the Moscow one for a second and look at so many people ridiculously demonizing a photographer for shooting a car fire where someone HAD been inside the vehicle (but not seen on the video) and a week later no one cares that a firefighter took a picture of a burning house with six bodies inside. That, to me, is a hidden agenda of bias against the news media.
As others have pointed out, many of the same people who are willing to fight to the death for their Second Amendment rights are willing to modify the First Amendment based on it being too offensive to some. You don’t see some hypocrisy working here. I sure do.
Statter
Dave,
Have to agree with the idea that our (US) media has evolved to where they don't show "the gory stuff". As mentioned, it seems this started during Vietnam, and now is at a point where nothing is shown that could offend the most sensitive viewers. Whether this is due to media management deciding that they need to protect their viewers from the cold, hard facts of reality or is due to complaints from those viewers, or the combination of the two, is something you would have more insight about than the rest of us street toads.
I'm curious what, if anything, was done through channels about the CT trooper episode and whether that is the approach that they really want to take with the media (and the public for that matter).
We had an episode with our department where our municipal leaders had a fit because a photographer for the local paper was able to get a pic which upon close examination showed part of a DOA still in a car involved with a semi, a dump truck & a RR overpass with fire. The "leaders" weren't there, or they might have noticed that the picture was taken from several hundred feet away (behind the caution tape) with a telephoto lens. I guess we should have barricaded the entire line of sight from the wreck from their point of view.
Years back we did have a reporter from the same paper do a series based on a ride-along period she did with us. As luck would have it, she ended up getting more 'life around the station' material than fire & rescue action. Some of the TV/radio types in our major metropolitan area have made an effort to learn the right words, but, of course, most haven't.
Still, far better to have the media on your side than not.
CHAOS,
I was in touch with the photographer briefly, but then I never heard back from him. I don’t know the resolution of the incident with the trooper.
I agree with you about sanitizing by the news media. I was also guilty of it.
Statter
Dave,
You do have a valid point about the dislike for the media in some cases by public safety. I see it daily. If the media bosses in control of content don't want (or have the stones) to take grief for showing something too graphic, can you blame those on the front lines for turning the tables? Many in public safety take it personally when the media are all too ready to plaster the next FF, EMT or Cop on the lead doing something wrong for higher ratings, simply by playing off the positive image those jobs are generally respected for? Its a two way street.
Media has increasingly become about what sells and not what informs. Those who do walk the walk in public safety see the hypocrisy the media have too. If we're not good for business, reality gets pushed aside for flashy. I have no problem with a disclaimer being read to warn the audience before running something graphic. News media have a different obligation than entertainment media and to me the lack of depth, balance and sometimes STARK reality in coverage contributes largely to the dislike by those on the streets and in the battlefield who see that reality first hand. I never like someone telling me how to make up my mind, but increasingly media outlets that present themselves as "news" don't have a problem with that if it sells. News shouldn't be about ratings if it is done in the public's interest for the right to use the airwaves.
The prof. also said you should read at least three different newspapers everyday to be somewhat informed. Fortunately the internet provides us many avenues making it an easier task then ever to get coverage from many sides. However at the same time, mass media in all forms has divided audiences making it necessary to tailor coverage to keep a dedicated audience tuned in. Bottom line: real news isn't supposed to be about ratings, but finding the balance and keeping an audience is an ongoing battle.
Jason,
You have some good points and I agree with a lot of them. I am a pretty big critic of the news media myself. I see their sins. I just defend their right to be stupid.
The editorial decisions may be wrong, for many reasons, but I would rather have someone outside the government making those decisions.
In eveyr story told on TV, unless we are running raw video from the beginning of an incident to the end (unlikely) editorial decisions are made by people in the news media. As you know, while some of those choices are made over whether something is too graphic, content decisions are made for numerous other reasons. Because you are some other fire official or police officer doesn’t like the editorial decisions made by the news media gives you the right to be pissed off but not the right to make those editorial decisions.
Sixty Minutes is the show that showed news can make money. In some ways it all went down hill from there.
I also encourage people to read as many different sources of news as they can. But while the Internet gives us the ability to access a larger variety of news sources on our own personal timetables, it also requires a much more critical eye of what is real and what isn’t.
BTW, send me an email when you have a moment at dave@statter911.com. I’d like to have a related conversation with you off line.
I appreciate your very knowledgeable point of view and interest in this subject.
Statter
Dave,
I’m not sure what CT. video you are watching but according to the State Trooper at the 38 second mark. “There is someone dying over there”. After over 25 years in the fire service I don’t recall anytime that a victim was ever removed from the scene, either living or deceased, prior to the fire being extinguished. The car is still burning and do you know with 100% certainty that there is nobody inside? Are you sure that shadow in the smoke isn’t the victim/mother/sister.
Again, all I’m saying is it hits closer to home when the incident is in your own backyard. If it was my family member whose shadow was in that car, even if it was only my imagination, would only add to their grief. There are plenty of ways to report the story and give people their dignity too. Just ask the French brothers who filmed 9-11 and didn’t release the pictures of the bodies on the ground and still did an outstanding video.
Shhh…
Shhh…,
I am not 100 percent certain she wasn’t in there. The information provided indicated she wasn’t. But even if she was, as long as you didn’t see her body, or any part of it, what is the issue with showing the burning car? Is it any different than showing the burning house with six people inside?
What did the photographer in Connecticut show that was more graphic than the 9-11 video you are talking about.
Where did the photographer not show respect and dignity?
Telling a photographer he can’t shoot a burning car on the off chance he might get a body part in his picture (which I can assure you will not make TV) is like saying lets ban citizens from having guns on the off chance that someone might accidentally be killed (and BTW accidental shootings happen a lot more than bodies showing up on TV).
Furthermore even if there was a body that he shot, the founders of this nation decreed and the highest court in the land has affirmed time and again that it isn’t up to that cop to make the editorial decision ocwe whether it can be shot or published. Someone’s feelings doesn’t trump the First Amendment anymore than it does the Second Amendment.
Stattter
I don't know…I'm just asking. What about the video of the Station Nightclub fire? That was shot by news media, but fire departments use it all the time (with no outrage toward the videographer) as an example of the dangers of overcrowding, lack of sprinklers, etc.
Is there a double standard here because the video is useful to us?