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Death of an Olympian on Network TV: Too Far?

17 February 2010 36 Comments

I plopped down on the sofa to watch the evening news. I’d been in meetings all day and was not up to speed on the day’s happenings when the story came on about an Olympic athlete and the luge. They were talking about the fact that he died, the news was shocking to me. But what shocked me to the point of disbelief was the footage that immediately followed of the young athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili. The footage showed him rounding the corner of the luge and then the entire video of this young man’s death was there on network news including the aftermath of his bloody, lifeless body in closeup! To make matters worse, they then played it in SLOW MOTION, a young man’s DEATH in slow motion on NBC network news!

The following day, my little nephew came to my house for dinner and was chatting about the Olympics. He is only 6 but he loves watching the Olympics and talked incessantly about the skaters and the skiers and then he picked up the newspaper from the table and told me that someone died in the Olympics and that he saw it. Yes, he was watching television with his Grandma the day before when the network news ran the sickening footage without warning and my 6-year-old nephew watched before his Grandma understood what was happening quickly enough to change the channel.

You tube videos of a young man being beaten to death, online videos of horrible, violent incidents…now this on NETWORK TELEVISION. How far is too far?

Larry King did a story about it and announced that out of respect for the family and viewers, he would not be showing the footage of the crash. Is this kind of respectful journalism a dying art? Is our need to know becoming insatiable? Is our desire for “transparency” a good thing or a bad one? I’d love your opinions.

36 Comments »

Chris B said:

This was a sad, and I agree was a well too publicized event.

# 17 February 2010 at 10:14 pm

Lyn said:

This is just one example of how the networks have gone overboard. There is not a lot of “reporting” any more, but “exploiting” or going way over the top is the way of the day. It’s a race for the numbers of viewers, not news. I don’t like it, and frankly I watch TV only a couple times a week, because more than that is more than I can take.

# 17 February 2010 at 11:03 pm

Nancy M. said:

I heard some of the footage was very graphic. They shouldn’t have kept replaying it after it happened.

# 18 February 2010 at 1:42 am

Peter McCartney said:

Hi! Too Far? Yes, way too far. It would have been better to show his past sporting highlights as a tribute rather than his death. Anyway, what do you expect from the media: just another ratings stunt gone wrong.

# 18 February 2010 at 5:11 am

FishHawk said:

I fully agree. They shouldn’t have aired the footage–certainly not with enhancements, and showing the aftermath is beyond cold.

# 18 February 2010 at 5:12 am

marsha said:

I think the news went too far this time. I cringe everytime I see that footage and honestly I don’t want to see it any more. That poor boys family must be crushed and all this media attention of the event isn’t helping.

# 18 February 2010 at 7:47 am

Brooke said:

Thankfully, I haven’t watched the crash footage. Is it not enough just to say the poor man died on the track? If (and that’s a big if) they feel the need to air it – a suffecient warning should be given so that TVs can be shut off and those who don’t want to witness the sensationalism of a young man’s death can do otherwise.

# 18 February 2010 at 8:23 am

Granny Annie said:

I have not seen that footage and now I will know to turn off the news if it starts going there. We are not Olympic fans so are not viewing the coverage. It is my opinion that we have grown too gruesome when we can watch an actual death occur and not object. Yet I live on thriller fiction. I guess it starts out seeming okay because we know it is fiction and that let’s the reality in the room.

# 18 February 2010 at 10:37 am

Jen said:

My son and I were talking about this horrible death and the networks showing the footage on TV. My son suggested it was snuff. I argued it wasn’t snuff since the death was not murder nor intended, they simply caught it on tape. But the more I think about it, I’m inclined to think it might be snuff based on the airing of it. Pure sensationalism. There is no point in showing, at all. Except of course to get better ratings, which is loosely what snuff is.

# 18 February 2010 at 11:12 am

Nezzy said:

Yep, this Ozarks farm chick thinks journalism and television coverage has gone way to far. I did not see the young Olympian tragically die on TV. It was my son who informed me they showed the tape over and over. I saw a coverage from Haiti I just can’t get out of my mind. It was off 60Min.s of machinery scooping up bodies in a front loader and piling them in piles on the street. I saw it before I had a chance to turn the TV off and I’m 57. I can’t get that image out of my head, imagine what it would do to a six year old.

Great post gal! Have a wonderfully blessed day from the hills and hollers of the Missouri Ponderosa!!!

# 18 February 2010 at 11:46 am

Nezzy said:

Oops, Heeeheehe!!! I popped in to thanks you for visitin’ and leaving your sweet comment. I got sidetracked….doesn’t take much. I tend to bounce around.

# 18 February 2010 at 11:55 am

Kay Dennison said:

I think we’ve gone too far on so many levels!!!!!!

# 18 February 2010 at 1:37 pm

Tina T said:

I was shocked that they were showing the footage. It’s one thing if something gets caught during live coverage, but to just keep showing this footing over and over was very disturbing. I can’t imagine how the family must have felt. They should have shown clips that celebrated his much too short life instead of this gruesome footage.

# 18 February 2010 at 8:07 pm

Momisodes said:

I was just talking about this with my husband and my BIL. We were all just sickened that they kept airing the footage over and over again on TV. What made me even more upset was when the athlete’s father said during an interview that he had NOT seen the footage of his son’s death and did not want to ever see it. But yet, they still aired it.

# 18 February 2010 at 11:24 pm

VanillaSeven said:

That’s exactly what happen to me lately, I was sitting in the cafe, peacefully with my lunch and then BANG! I realize the network always shows the same show: it’s a crime news with blood everywhere.. sigh.. can do they do sumthin’ easy and simple like music or even gossip? I just loose my appetite

# 19 February 2010 at 2:41 am

Donald Swarbrick said:

We in Britain were lucky enough to have the true extent of the disaster edited, as not to cause too much stress to anyone watching. For that I am grateful to our broadcasting services.

# 19 February 2010 at 4:34 am

One of The Guys said:

I haven’t been watching the Olympics much but my kids have. They didn’t mention it. I’ll have to ask my wife.

I think the least they can do is give parents/viewers a warning BEFORE they show something like that.

“Rubbernecking” has always been part of our society. Traffic on the highway almost slows to a halt when there’s a bad accident. But the highway is one thing, TV is another. I think this trend is going to keep getting worse, because we’re all getting desensitized.

# 19 February 2010 at 4:55 am

63mago said:

I do not watch tv and I have absolutely no interest in these sports events. I think that the airing of this man’s accident and death is a logical continuation of the development of television and “news”. “The media” (it is not correct, but I have no better formulation for it) are intrusive and in a way un-limited, there are no more limits accepted: From emotional stress to break-down, crime, sex, violence and now dying “live”. Television is part of a mind-creating machine that cloggs peoples minds with images and can easily be used for manipulation. But all this is nothing new and for media-theorists since McLuhan its a bit of a yawn.

# 19 February 2010 at 6:26 am

Helene said:

I totally agree with you! I think NBC went way too far in showing the video…I mean, have some respect for the guy’s poor parents and his team, as well as his fans.

Oh the other thing I dislike is when they play horrifying 911 calls on the air. No one needs to hear those details, really.

Thanks for stopping by my blog…hope you’ll be back again soon!

# 19 February 2010 at 2:18 pm

Denise@TogetherWeSave said:

That is horrible. As a country we should show more respect. I really hate to hear about this.

# 19 February 2010 at 2:28 pm

Connie said:

It wasn’t shown on our local news station. I think it’s going too far to show the footage of that young man’s demise, in fact, I think many things shown on the news should have a rating before shown so we can either take the kids out of the room or turn off the TV. Sensationalism is getting the best of us. Lack of respect for loved ones of the victims is rampant.
I agree with you.

# 19 February 2010 at 6:26 pm

Darlene said:

It was sad seeing this young man die over and over. Didn’t need to see the actual footage of this sad accident.

# 20 February 2010 at 9:48 am

Blissed-Out Grandma said:

I saw it several times on the first day, always with a warning beforehand that there would be graphic footage. Of course I watched to see HOW graphic. Later in the evening, NBC finally stopped using the full thing. What shocked me more than the coverage was the dangerous way the track was built in the first place. (And, of course, realizing that some people actually enjoy hurtling down an icy track at 90 miles an hour, on a sled.)

# 20 February 2010 at 2:30 pm

DJan said:

Yes, I agree; it was way too graphic. I did watch the video, and they showed it again in slow motion. You could see that it was hitting the steel support on the side that killed him, but I didn’t see the impact, since it was on the far side of the support. It looked to me like he might have walked away from it if he hadn’t been exposed to those support beams. They covered them up after his death. I cried for his loss, it didn’t need to happen.

# 20 February 2010 at 5:22 pm

Heather said:

I missed it, thank goodness! Yes, way to far!
I quit watching the news just for this reason. I used to sit and watch the news and keep track of all the subjests they covered..Murder, some one going to trial, fires, robberies…All the bad things going on around us. I finally got sick of it and quit watching.

# 21 February 2010 at 2:36 am