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SF Chronicle

Graphic Video of the Slayings of a News Reporter and Cameraman Raises Moral and Ethical Questions

Aug 27, 2015  •  Post A Comment

“When video of the on-air shooting of a Virginia news reporter and cameraman [on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015] spread within minutes across the country — with the killer even posting his own footage online — they became the latest exhibits in a moral and ethical drama that is playing out in blood at newspapers and TV stations and on social media,” writes Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The story says, “Among the central questions were whether media producers ought to be broadcasting footage of a double slaying, and what effect does such video, repeating over and over, have on society, let alone unstable potential copycats?”

“‘Yes, everything is available online,’ Bob Papper, a journalism professor emeritus at Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y., who has surveyed trends in television and radio for 22 years” told the Chronicle. Papper continued, “I don’t know if it drives what’s on TV other than it makes us numb to the realities of it. It may well change the standard, so it’s possible young people have a very different standard of what to show than an old fogy like me, but I don’t think we need to see people being killed on television.”

The Chronicle also spoke to Ed Wasserman, dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He “said there is a tendency in the media to pander to the public’s morbid fascination. If videos like the one from Virginia aren’t shown, however, the news media could be accused of concealing facts from the public. … Wasserman said coverage of the carnage in Vietnam changed people’s opinions about the war, while the lack of such coverage in Iraq concealed ‘the horror and public suffering’ that he felt the public needed to know about.

“‘The trade-off is between needlessly horrifying people and concealing what people have a right to be exposed to in order to properly respond to this gruesome act,’ Wasserman said. ‘It’s complicated. Victims of bloodshed have rights, too. At some level there is a privacy right not to have the image of their slaughter made into public currency.’”

If you are interested in this story, more details can be found if you click here, which takes you to the original Chronicle piece.

5 Comments

  1. When programs like Hannibal and Walking Dead show murder and then eating of the bodies every week, it is hard to understand how these same networks refuse to show legitimate news stories. There is no problem with news showing videos of police killing and abusing black men over and over and over. But a pretty white girl getting murdered can’t be shown even once? This is true hypocrisy. The reporter comes on and says it is very graphic so we won’t show you. He saw it, why can’t we? It is easy enough to put up a warning if you think it is too graphic. Now that I have seen it, it is definitely no worse than any of the beatings and murders of black men that we have seen multiple times over the last year.

  2. The difference is that one is a fiction, the other is not. We don’t glorify the murderer/coward by giving him what he wants, nor do we continue to traumatize the families of the victims under the guise of news. To do so is needless and gratuitous.

    If you watched The Walking Dead you’d know that the violence there is neither of those things (needless or gratuitous). Moreover you’d know that the shows are not about zombies and murders but about the human condition and how we deal with the uncertainty of the extreme conditions of our world. The zombies are an analog for so much that it’s real today.

    And as we learn from The Walking Dead, more often than not, the other humans are far scarier than the “monsters.”

  3. Excuse me, the news programs showing police beating up black men and shooting black men is not fictional. Maybe the reason we continue to see this issue in our country is that people like you think that these news stories are fictional.

  4. I do not think that these real stories are a fiction. You, sir, are being purposely obtuse and have choden instead to ignore my clearly expressed feeling on the subject in favour of a proposal attack.

    At what point did I suggest what was happening to our black brothers and sisters is a fiction?

    I expressed that the difference in showing close ups of actual murders on the daily news is that it is needless and gratuitous whereas the fictional drama that uses artistic depictions of “monsters” is an analog designed to engender a discussion of social issues. Those issues include how we treat our black citizens, by the way (see George A. Romero’s 1968 classic “Night if the Living Dead” which uses zombies to discuss and address fears about segregation and the civil rights movement). I’ll also point out that AMC, which airs The Walking Dead does not cover news events.

    I too am horrified by what’s happening to our citizens black, white, asian, hispanic, muslim, jewish, etc., but the fact that we wrong one group doesn’t make wronging another the way to “fix” the problem.

    Showing murder on television does not fix the problem, friend. It gives the real monsters an outlet to display their sickness.

    Are you suggesting that is the better choice? If so, I believe you are the one looking to exploit these tragedies.

  5. I do not think that these real stories are a fiction. You, sir, are being purposely obtuse and have chosen instead to ignore my clearly expressed feeling on the subject in favour of a personal attack.

    At what point did I suggest what was happening to our black brothers and sisters is a fiction?

    I expressed that the difference in showing close ups of actual murders on the daily news is that it is needless and gratuitous whereas the fictional drama that uses artistic depictions of “monsters” is an analog designed to engender a discussion of social issues. Those issues include how we treat our black citizens, by the way (see George A. Romero’s 1968 classic “Night if the Living Dead” which uses zombies to discuss and address fears about segregation and the civil rights movement). I’ll also point out that AMC, which airs The Walking Dead does not cover news events.

    I too am horrified by what’s happening to our citizens black, white, asian, hispanic, muslim, jewish, etc., but the fact that we wrong one group doesn’t make wronging another the way to “fix” the problem.

    Showing murder on television does not fix the problem, friend. It gives the real monsters an outlet to display their sickness.

    Are you suggesting that is the better choice? If so, I believe you are the one looking to exploit these tragedies.

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