A Suicide Goes Viral On the Internet 566
Hugh Pickens writes "Will Oremus reports that Fox News showed a grisly spectacle Friday afternoon during a live car chase when the suspect got out of his car, stumbled down a hillside, pulled a gun, and shot himself in the head. As the scene unfolded, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith grew increasingly apprehensive, then yelled 'get off it, get off it!,' belatedly urging the show's producers to stop the live feed as it became obvious the man was going to do something rash. Fox News cut awkwardly to a commercial just after showing his death and after Fox aired the on-air suicide, Smith apologized to viewers, saying, 'We really messed up.' However BuzzFeed immediately posted the footage on YouTube, where it garnered more than 1,000 'likes' in under an hour, sparking immediate blowback. 'Who's worse? @FoxNews for airing the suicide, or @BuzzFeed for re-posting the video just in case you missed it the first time?' posted the Columbia Journalism Review. Gawker's Hamilton Nolan called his site's decision to post the video 'ethical,' because 'it is news' but research suggests that graphic depictions of suicide in the media can spur copycat suicides, especially among young people, and the World Health Organization's guidelines warn against sensationalizing it. Virtually everyone who has studied it agrees that, at a minimum, suicides should be covered with a modicum of sensitivity and context (PDF). 'Of course it's news that Fox News accidentally aired the video. And you can make a good case that Fox was inviting this type of debacle with its habit of airing live car-chase feeds. But Fox couldn't have known that it was about to air a suicide. BuzzFeed, by contrast, knew exactly what it was doing,' writes Oremus. 'That might be good business for BuzzFeed, but it's hard to see the benefit for anyone else.'"
Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone starts jumping on Fox News for whatever axe they have to grind with them, please substitute Fox News with "CNN" or "MSNBC" and ask yourself if your vitriol would be just the same.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Fox has the moral (relative) high ground here.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding is that they attempted to put it on a 5 second delay, but the delay didn't kick in. So it was live, and by the time they knew to cut it, it was too late.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that they attempted to put it on a 5 second delay, but the delay didn't kick in. So it was live, and by the time they knew to cut it, it was too late.
The questions remains: why did they air that chase anyway? Because its journalism? Or because its sensationalism? Did they show it because they thought the guy would just stop the car and surrender, or because they hoped for some nice crashes (where you could pretend that nobody died) that they should over and over again, spinning it off into some Fox reality show? Sure, other channels would (or actually) have done the same - but its still not really news.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course they aired it because it was exciting, and statistically, suicides are rare.
On April 30, 1998, I decided to ditch the latter half of the school day with my girlfriend. On the news was the long, drawn-out suicide of Daniel Victor Jones [liveleak.com] [ WARNING: GRAPHIC! ] who was an AIDS patient protesting, on the Los Angeles' 710 freeway, teh lack of care he received through an HMO. The part that the video does not show is that he gets in his truck with his dog before he sets the truck on fire, then runs out of the flaming truck shutting the door behind him so that his dog dies in the inferno.
Then, he gets his shotgun and blows his head off. All of this was televised LIVE on the news, which caused the news networks to actually put counselors on the air after the incident, it was a huge shitstorm.
As for me, I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. My girlfriend said, "well, that fucker deserved it. Let's go get some KFC. " I told her, "you want to eat right after watching a grizzly live suicide?!" She said, "Yeah, why not? He deserved it, burning his dog like that. Let's go to KFC."
-- Ethanol-fueled
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with your girlfriend and would like to subscribe to her newsletter.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they aired it because it was exciting, and statistically, suicides are rare.
Sure, but why was it exciting? Only because there were lives at stake. No matter how you frame it, that's why people tune in. That's also why you have so many medical and police shows on TV but so few accounting shows - people are more interested when lives are at stake, even in fiction. So you can't just say "oh, but it rarely happens" when this sort of possible outcome (death) is precisely why the guy was being filmed in the first place. Otherwise you might as well follow some random lawful driver with a camera and narrate his actions ("seems like he's now stopping at a drug store... what is he buying? Is that anal lube? Do we have a confirmation that it's anal lube? Oh, ok, it's just toothpaste. Right. Back to him, he's about to leave the drug store and I don't want to miss the moment he brushes his teeth, when we'll find out if he flosses or not.)"
I'm not even against showing that sort of thing on TV. It's happening in a public space and people want to watch it, so let them. But this meaningless dance of "oh, we're sorry, we didn't really mean to show you what happened" is borderline unbelievable for a "news" channel that have been showing (and speculating on) every detail of the chase up until that point.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:4)
the problem with this kind of TV is that it is giving us all the impression that suicides, shootings, etc all happen far more frequently than they may actually do. Your point about accounting is a good one - there is little balance in entertainment nowadays.
If Fox are only showing car chases, shootings, hostage-takings etc, then those people who can't think critically about what they're watching will start to buy in to all this neo-conservative climate of fear bullshit. That's when we start to suspect our neighbours, and invite the government to indulge in warrantless wiretaps.
Bingo! Which is why we as a society would benefit from schools having a stronger emphasis on critical skills, statistics and probability, and perhaps some media studies. Understanding a little bit about how mass media works is useful for spotting the games they play. It'd never get to the point where we all become immune to silliness and bullshit. What we can hope for is that we reach a critical mass, so we're better equipped to look out for one another when we do fall for something.
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Natural and essential procreation that done wrongly can lead to STDs and AIDS (most agree), we're leaving to kids in the playground to speculate over. How to get away from the cops and spend years in a jail where you might get raped and/or murdered (if you sur
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I was going to post a longer comment about sensationalism and reality, but then I remembered this:
http://everything2.com/title/The+Projectionist%2527s+Nightmare [everything2.com]
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Sure, other channels would (or actually) have done the same - but its still not really news.
TV news hasn't been the dictionary definition of news for decades. When news stations aren't various flavors of the same propaganda popsicle, they are car chases, sports, and celebrity updates. The circus part of bread and circuses [wikipedia.org].
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding from the apology was that there WAS a 5 second delay, and the guy in charge of The Button didnt press it in the 5 second time.
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My understanding from the apology was that there WAS a 5 second delay, and the guy in charge of The Button didnt press it in the 5 second time.
That's a nice job to have. How bad at your job do you need to be to mess it up?
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, a NASA project launched by balloon [csmonitor.com] damaged a bunch of property and endangered members of the public. This could have been avoided by the guy who was supposed to trip the failsafe release for the balloon. But he didn't do so even though it pulled a crane through a fence and an SUV. Story is that he was paralyzed by horror through the accident and just failed to act.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that Fox, just like most of our mainstream media, are so fixated on the inflammatory and absurd instead of the productive and positive, that it is nearly impossible to avoid these kinds of scenarios.
You take a media system primarily driven by shock/awe/horror/fear (obviously the scared viewers hang around for commercials), and combine that with high profitability, and what do you expect? A perfectly censored viewing of something horrible?
We know there are pedophiles out there. We know there are horrible tragedies out there. We know that somewhere, someone at a workplace, did something unethical. And yet the news persists to demonstrate these rare (compared to the whole population) events and fixate on them. Eventually, what were small tragedies with few people inflamed/affected, become big talked-up national debates with wide scale fears and social responses.
Ironically, good things are happening far more frequently, but even big-scale good things (like scientific progression, community efforts, etc) are ignored or understated.
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So you have a media that is basically focused, and profiting, on rubbernecking bloody car accidents (metaphorically), and then a dead body (something horrible) shows up on the live stream..... What did those highly attentive, can't-wait-to-find-out-the-next-horrible-thing, viewers expect to see? When you're the consumer, and you show these orginazations that you're going to pay the most attention when horrible things are on TV, what do you expect them to give you?
You'd better be sure that the intense watching of the gay-meth-sex scandal of that (south carolina?) governor, was part of the juice that drives these news organizations to show more scary stuff, like live police chases, molested catholic kids, etc etc etc.... You'd better be sure damn sure, as a viewer, that when you paid so much attention to the child molesting teacher in LA this spring that you asked to see more of that....
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The major news organizations suck for not having an integrity beyond profit; that they will do what sells best over what is representative of real life.
The consumers suck for actually paying so much attention, getting scared, and then paying even more attention. People should be informed enough to know how their role as a consumer influences the values and actions of other elements in life. They should, also, spend less time in worry, seeking wrongs, and more time in reflection and planning, seeking positive answers for the wrongs they acknowledge.
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I don't blame Fox (for this). I don't blame the site that echoed it. If you were watching the chase, you wanted to see something nasty, and got more than you may have bargained for. If you watched the echo, then you know exactly what you asked to see.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is either airing an issue?
Kids can be flooded with unlimited fictional violence on TV, movies and video games but the real thing is suddenly objectionable?
Yes, because there is a world of difference between fictional violence and real violence. It's like the difference between a drawing of a nuclear weapon and an actual nuke. Anyone who can't distinguish between fiction and reality need to get some help, and fast. Airing real violence, especially alongside fictional violence, helps to blur the distinction between the two and reduce the natural aversion humans have towards violence, which makes people more likely to actually commit violence in the future (note that so long as you can distinguish between real and fiction, all the fictional violence in the world won't make you more likely to commit actual violence, since fictional is nothing like real violence, being, you know, fictional.)
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who can't distinguish between fiction and reality need to get some help, and fast.
Tell that to those fascists that want to ban cartoon depictions of underage sex.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. We really don't show enough respect to young people or give them the credit for intelligence that they deserve. It's insulting to kids to suggest they can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
If you were told repeatedly at the age of 14 that you couldn't understand the difference between what's real and what isn't, or what's right or wrong, I think you'd be pretty childish and messed up by the time you were a legal adult.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Yes, because there is a world of difference between fictional violence and real violence.
Studies have shown the human brain does not distinguish the difference. It has the same chemical reactions to whatever it sees, regardless if it's real or on TV.
Seriously?
I watched the latest Resident Evil last night, and apart from a few startling moments (quiet, then a sudden zombie roar that made me jump) the violence, gore, and the many fictional deaths didn't bother me at all.
A few days ago I was driving and passed an accident. There was a car with obvious collision damage on the front, and a girl lying on the road. No blood or dismemberment, but it really shook me up.
Studies have shown that there is a big difference between the brains reactions to fictional violence and real violence.
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Nah, I think it unlikely for the opportunity to be passed up. They actually screwed up so it's even legit.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously, how many graphic depictions of murder and death were aired on prime time that very night? If you didn't know the footage was really and that someone was actually dying, it would most likely be less grisly than the shit you see on an average night of CSI. But the violence isn't so funny anymore when it's real? Perhaps we should think about our values as a society. It seems rather hypocritical to imagine all manner of mayhem, and then turn away in horror at the sight of a little real mayhem. If you think it's terrible that you might accidentally see some guy splatter his brains on the ground on the news, imagine what your average soldier goes through in an average day in Afghanistan, and yet we're fine with demanding that of them.
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Before anyone starts jumping on Fox News for whatever axe they have to grind with them, please substitute Fox News with "CNN" or "MSNBC" and ask yourself if your vitriol would be just the same.
It would be a shitty thing to do no matter who did it.
Re: (Score:2)
I bet you bitch about Fox News deliberately taking things out of context, too.
You added nothing to the discussion about the actual topic, so please do the rest of us a favor and go play somewhere else.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:4, Informative)
Before anyone starts jumping on Fox News for whatever axe they have to grind with them, please substitute Fox News with "CNN" or "MSNBC" and ask yourself if your vitriol would be just the same.
"CNN went to court and won the right to lie in news broadcasts"
"MSNBC went to court and won the right to lie in news broadcasts"
Nope, doesn't work.
Vitriol unchanged.
Jo_ham went on Slashdot to lie about Fox News.
Yeah, that's actually true.
See, the story you are talking about wasn't even FoxNews. It was a Fox affiliate in Florida. Next, neither FoxNews nor the affiliate ever argued for the right to lie. Here are the facts:
A reporter for a Fox affiliate in Florida did a hit piece on Monsanto. Fox decided not to air it. When they finally did air it, they wanted a response from Monsanto. Well, the reporter had a fit and refused to do the story if it included a Monsanto response. So, Fox did the right thing and fired her and her partner. Well, they sued trying to claim "whistle-blower" status, lost, and were then ordered to pay Fox's legal fees.
Where the "argued for the right to lie" bit comes in was from a person who is against GMO foods and hates Monsanto. He said that Monsonto's response to the store was a lie, so Fox was arguing for the right to lie. People picked it up and it spread, even though it wasn't the truth. The people like you heard it, believed it because it is what you WANTED to believe, and spreads it far and wide.
Jane Akre was the reporters name. Feel free to look it up. The report was on BGH (bovine growth hormone) that Akre and Wilson were saying had severe, negative health effects. Well, dairy farmers still use BGH, and this was over 12 years ago and most milk drinkers are not dead... so it appears that Akre and Wilson were wrong. They were actually the ones suing Fox to air a false report. It was them who went to court, arguing to lie.
HERE [campaignfreedom.org] are the facts of the case.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Informative)
ArcherB goes on slashdot to deliberately misstate sections of the suit.
Yeah, that's actually true.
Here's the crucial bit from the appeal:
(taken from the wiki article on the subject, that cites numerous sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre [wikipedia.org] )
An appeal was filed, and a ruling in February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes. ... Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes, Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute." The appeal did not address any falsification claims, noting that "as a threshold matter ... Akre failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute," but noted that the lower court ruled against all of Wilson's charges and all of Akre's claims with the exception of the whistleblower claim that was overturned.
Thus, the right to lie. The court determined that Akre was not eligible to be covered by the whistleblower law because the FCC's policy against lying was not a law. Thus, they can broadcast a false news story and there's no law preventing it, nor can you be protected from being fired by whistleblower laws if you refuse to go along with it.
Fox and its affiliates are safe.
Re:Calm before the hyperbole (Score:5, Informative)
All the judge said was that Akre had no basis to sue as a whistle-blower based on her (unproven) claim that WTVT lied.
Fox never claimed they or any other news organization have a right to lie, only that even if they did lie the FCC policy wouldn't apply. See the difference?
Re: (Score:3)
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Well, dairy farmers still use BGH, and this was over 12 years ago and most milk drinkers are not dead... so it appears that Akre and Wilson were wrong.
Not necessarily. While I'm not on a bandwagon for or against BGH in this post, keep in mind there are a lot of possible outcomes on the continuum between "alive" and "dead" when considering the effects of long-term exposure to low-dose hormones and other organics. Implying that the death of first and second generation exposures is the only possible noteworthy outcome in this particular case does not help any argument for or against the use of BGH.
Shocking to watch live (Score:3)
Wife and I were watching this live. It was shocking to say the least. I'm sad to say I've now witnessed two suicides live on television over the years. Live television is difficult since people can be so unpredictable.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No offense man, but people got so soft nowadays, especially in "civilized" countries. People from Western Europe, UK, USA, Canada et al seem to have become very sensitive to what they call "gruesome" images. But at the same time they watch Saw VII or whatever. Yeah, I know one's "the real deal" and the other is "fake stuff" but really, strictly from a visual perspective pretty much any live murder or suicide is less spectacular.
Grow a pair and realize you just watched some troubled complete stranger do some
Re:Shocking to watch live (Score:5, Insightful)
strictly from a visual perspective
Unless the viewer is a psychopath (in the clinical sense) that is never how it works.
Grow a pair
Grow up.
Re: (Score:3)
No, mate, the viewer might just be better in sync with how the world really is. You have no clue. Most people have no clue, and that's because their eyes are blind shut by a "world" of fake. If you live in a densely populated area (NY, LA, SanFran...), chances are that there's a murder less than 20 miles from you every single day, not to mention rapes, crippling beatings and the like.
With the advent of digital cameras pretty much everywhere... expect the reality to hit you in the head more and more often.
Yo
Re: (Score:3)
No, mate, the viewer might just be better in sync with how the world really is. You have no clue. Most people have no clue
If "most people have no clue" then how can that be how "the world" really is? Surely, by definition of "most", more than 50% of "the world" isn't like that at all?
expect the reality to hit you in the head more and more often.
What reality? That horrible things happen? I actually knew that already. But most people's personal reality in the civilized world is going about most of their days more-or-less happily with little more to worry about than whether there's enough milk for the morning. Yeah, shitty things happen, and if you want to obsess over them (as the news chan
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You need to go back to History 101, my friend. the world's history is full of people killing other people, and themselves, sometimes at the same time. It even happens right now in some part of the world. You would call them savages. They would call you wimp. Amazingly, I think both parties are wrong at the same time.
What you need to realize: we're facing different views and different cultures and there's nothing more to it. It's really THAT simple.
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I have watched plenty deaths caught on camera (as a former civilian consultant for police departments, related to digital footage technicalities). Also, when I worked for a TV station I had to record footage of car accidents, fires, drownings, aftermaths of suicides of various sort (for police records, there was a contract which had us take footage in gruesome detail and share it with the police department). I have developed a thicker crust than most people do, and that allowed me to examine the situations
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So why the fuck watch live TV? Why even bother with cable news? Every time you look at it, your IQ drops a point.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYokSytV-A [youtube.com]
It is terrible, does anybody know how to quickly remove it from the site? The video is flagged, but would Google be willing to remove it?
Re:Shocking to watch live (Score:5, Insightful)
why does it need to be removed? if you don't want to see it - don't watch it.
if you don't want other people to see it - 1. don't post links to it and 2. stop trying to control what other people can and cannot willingly see.
Re:Shocking to watch live (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It is suprising that he shot himself. It's more common for them to come out and pretend they have a weapon or if they do have one, to act as if they are about to use it against the officers. Suicide by COP is the most often used method in these cases. If you subscribe to the usual /. view then his problems, whatever they are, are over. It makes one wonder why more don't choose this way out. If this life is all there is then, when it becomes unbearably fubared, oblivion is an obvious and easy way out.
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If this life is all there is then, when it becomes unbearably fubared, oblivion is an obvious and easy way out.
There's always a chance, no matter how small, that life can get better. There's zero chance that death can improve.
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If this life is all there is then, when it becomes unbearably fubared, oblivion is an obvious and easy way out.
There's always a chance, no matter how small, that life can get better. There's zero chance that death can improve.
Yeah but what if your life sucks AND you're really really lazy?
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Was R Budd Dwyer the other one?
Re:Shocking to watch live (Score:4, Informative)
The Filter song "Hey Man, Nice Shot" was written about that incident.
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I've seen it. And the blood was the horrible part, but I don't remember the cameraman following the action so much as just leaving the camera pointed at the same place. I figured it was on a tripod (it was a press conference) and so the cameraman just didn't do anything (or maybe even looked away)
Re:Shocking to watch live (Score:4, Insightful)
(Disclaimer: I'm not a british citizen but I highly appreciate what the BBC does.)
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I saw the video. Honestly, it's pretty tame. The camera is far away so you don't see many details, just the guy pointing something to his head, then falling down. Fact is we've all seen JFK's head blown open so something like this isn't too shocking other than the fact it was live and a suicide. I feel sorry for the guy's family more than anything, they shouldn't have to see this once, let along the number of times it will show up on the internet.
they knew it was possible (Score:2)
... because Shepard Smith, in his apology, said they inserted a 5 second delay, which is what it's there for.
Someone not hitting the switcher fast enough was bound to happen sooner or later, given Fox's practices.
--
BMO
Snuff Videos (Score:3)
In their drive for the sensational, they've stumbled upon the old, highly unethical "snuff video" genre. I wonder if their ex-commentator/madman Glen Beck would approve.
Now its out on the Internet. I sense a new angle for net censorship coming in 3...2...1...
Ethical Not... (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't show suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
in a world full of war for the purpose of promoting democracy where thousands of civilians die from the fighting or aftermath? Oh yah we don't directly see it so its ok.... Out of sight out of mind.
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Re:You can't show suicide (Score:5, Funny)
I wish they would stop showing gruesome murder victims too. Especially that old one of that guy nailed to a piece of wood. Yuck.
Re: (Score:3)
Suicide is taboo because /Sky Fairie wants live worshippers.
"If we pretend it's not real we won't contemplate it."
That's also why Assisted Suicide is mostly taboo no matter how much suffering it would alleviate.
Re: (Score:3)
A bit of difference, don't you think? As the summary said, it has been shown that seeing suicide can influence others, therefore that footage is withheld to protect other troubled people. Unless you do want to push people with depression or chronic pain over that last hurdle towards death.
Good limitations of free speech (Score:3)
Sorry, no. Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater is generally accepted as a limitation of free speech. It's a crime, and it should be a crime. Likewise, suicides should not be shown on TV. They are much more harmful than your average TV violence. It is well-established in the psychology literature that seeing a suicide in detail can be enough to push someone who's borderline-suicidal over the edge. Do some reading. [wikipedia.org]
Some Middle Ground (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some Middle Ground (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some Middle Ground (Score:4, Insightful)
Fox could and DID know what they were airing. (Score:2)
As long as they didn't influence it, it's OK (Score:3)
The question is whether TV directly influenced the suicide. That doesn't seem to have been the case here. This was apparently a failed crook who didn't want to go to jail.
It would be different if someone was attempting suicide to get attention, as in threatening to jump from a building, and that was covered on live TV. Then coverage would directly affect the odds of someone jumping.
Re:As long as they didn't influence it, it's OK (Score:4, Informative)
There is also the question whether this video will influence more people to commit suicide. The Samaritans have a section on their website explaining how to report and dramatize suicides responsibly.
http://www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-reporting-suicide [samaritans.org]
Fox DID know what the guy was about to do, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
But Fox couldn't have known that it was about to air a suicide.
Yes, they absolutely could, and did. A five-second delay was added when the guy got out of his car (why then and not before, and why it wasn't a one-minute delay, I don't know) but for reasons unknown it was, apparently, the in-studio monitors that got the delayed feed instead of the viewers.
Want to avoid this in future? Put a one-minute delay in - at least then it will be obvious if you've mis-switched it. My impression of American news hints that this happens often enough that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a special circuit added for this sort of thing. Then you've also got the added advantage of not struggling to narrate events as they happen - the gallery can clue you in on what's coming up, and you can even advise sensitive viewers to look away if something surprising but non-fatal happens.
Of course, you could always try not appealing to lowest-common-denominator literal car-crash television in the first place.
<satire>PS Imagine how much worse the outrage would be if the guy had waved his wang at the helicopter.</satire>
FoxNews shows reality - apologizes immediately (Score:5, Funny)
Ironic, isn't it?
This would be no big deal in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
I watched the unedited footage, it wasn't that bad. In Europe they show traffic accidents in all their horror, burned bodies and all.
I just don't get why this is such a big deal. I loath Fox News because they're the propaganda arm of the GOP, not because of something trivial like this.
Re:This would be no big deal in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, the thing I find most distasteful about the whole episode is the sanctimonious hypocrisy of both the oh-so-apologetic talking head and the oh-so-outraged critics.
They televise high speed police chases because televised hunting of humans for sport is illegal in most other contexts. That's just bread and butter airtime filler, not even worth mentioning; but suddenly everyone is oh-so-shocked when one such chase comes to an unpleasant end(as many do, although usually because of a crash which is rather more sanitary from the air). If the most overtly adversarial collisions of suspects and police are going to be just another flavor of live entertainment, suck it up and be honest about what you've been doing all along when something visibly messy happens. If you don't actually want that, then maybe a different flavor of 'news' would be in order...
They were lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? (Score:3)
Maybe I'm just a desensitized product of the times, but I fail to see why this is a big deal. The video isn't disturbing to me. There's no blood or brain matter shown, no audio. A far cry from something like the detailed Bud Dwyer suicide that aired live sometime back in the 80s I think. I still cringe when I think about seeing it.
Suicide is a reality. As a society we need to drop the taboo and understand suicide, genocide, war, etc. are all too real. I'd argue it is society, not me, who is really desensitized. Out of sight out of mind as a previous comment stated. The problem won't go away if you bury your head in sand. These things are shocking, sometimes disturbing, but they should be. Rather than ignoring them we should shed more light on them instead of living in a round corners, padded, molded plastic half true reality.
vicarious (Score:3)
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavour
It happens to be like;
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
She used the poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye
That's my kind of story
It's no fun 'til someone dies
Re: (Score:2)
BEYOND not funny. Pretty much about as not funny as Buzzard Feed.
Re: (Score:3)
Seeing the mod war parent is going through, I have to ask: what is it with suicide that riles people up? The news air shootings all the time, and a lot of homicides are shown on camera - that's pretty much ok, it seems. But why are suicides a no-no? If you ask me, they're way less shocking, since no one is forcefully overriding anyone's will.
Re:Suicide happens, (Score:5, Funny)
That's because just about everyone thinks suicide is evil, selfish, wrong, etc. Unless you're a pedophile, then do everyone a favor and go shoot yourself.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
So tired of the "Darwin" meme. It expresses a sense of smug superiority that is entirely undeserved.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:4, Funny)
The bad news is that proving your stupidity by invoking brainless memes doesn't cause immediate death,
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Informative)
Darwin Award is fine. It's just when people use the title where it wouldn't apply. You don't simply kill yourself and get an "award." You kill yourself in some kind of spectacularly stupid way, that results in your accidental death, implying that you just took place in natural selection.
A dude shooting himself in the head is just a suicide.
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Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, because the societies that protect the weak tend to be the strongest in the world, while those that persecute the weak tend to end up in the dustbin of history. Perhaps this is because a compassionate society that cares for its weaker members makes everyone stronger. And perhaps mental illness doesn't hurt society nearly as much as the traits of indifference and contempt.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it compassion to force someone that wants to die to live? Let's look at the person who committed suicide here - he was probably going to prison, and knowing US prisons death might have been a less cruel alternative. So why not let him die on his own terms?
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That's the real story here. Not that he committed suicide, but that he'd rather die than get caught (again?). Every law we have and every rule we enforce is about being a deterrant to going to jail. When death is more attractive than jail, laws no longer mean anything.
They'll want to control how much this video gets around for this reason. It's not about people seeing a suicide, it's about the awareness that death is a more viable solution than jail for many.
It's a video embodiment of "nothing to lose",
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it compassion to force someone that wants to die to live?
I agree with your indictment of the US prison system, but I wanted to zoom out and try to answer this question in isolation.
I can understand the argument that if the person is a legal adult of sound mind, they are due a certain amount of autonomy over their life. However, people who commit suicide are rarely of sound mind. Decisions made in the heat of the moment are often not what you really want.
IMO, it's compassion to help end the suffering of someone who is terminally ill and in pain and wishes to die. It is also compassion to protect a mentally ill person who is at risk of self-harm from the worst effects of their illness.
Whether this case is closer to the former or the latter, I'll leave to a moral philosopher to judge.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, because the societies that protect the weak tend to be the strongest in the world, while those that persecute the weak tend to end up in the dustbin of history.
Thats true... of the societies that protect the weak from the strong. That is, from being victimized by the strong.
That is not and never will be true concerning protecting adult people from themselves. In that case, there is no victim. Pretending that there is amounts to treating chronological adults like mental and spiritual infants. The only effect it can have is to cripple and retard their ability to deal with reality, make sound decisions, and actually live life. In fact that would be a living death. It would destroy the joy, meaning, and purpose that life has to offer.
It also makes it easier to institute a totalitarian cradle-to-grave state, because adults who cannot deal with reality and make good decisions need some kind of authority to tell them how to live. That's bad for everyone.
Perhaps this is because a compassionate society that cares for its weaker members makes everyone stronger.
Sometimes compassion requires the fortitude to respect the way people want to live (or not live) their lives, and to restrain your urge to appoint yourself the judge and jury concerning how they should deal with life.
Besides which, if there are no sometimes dire consequences and no bad examples, how do you expect someone to mature into a person who is fully human? You can't do that if you cannot make your own decisions and reap the consequences. No matter how hard you try.
And perhaps mental illness doesn't hurt society nearly as much as the traits of indifference and contempt.
I hate to break it to you but there are plenty of criminals who are not mentally ill (i.e. not legally insane). Some people are simply evil and they understand fully what they are doing. Your compassion is wasted on such people -- they interpret it as weakness and exploitability. In fact the more sociopathic types will let you believe you're doing good so long as they can take advantage of you. You have to have the judgment to tell the difference. There is no algorithm for doing so.
To speculate, did you ever think that by the time the chase ended, perhaps this individual preferred death over being pounded in the ass by Bubba for a couple of decades? Maybe you would have chosen Bubba, but you must admit someone else might not.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:4, Interesting)
To speculate, did you ever think that by the time the chase ended, perhaps this individual preferred death over being pounded in the ass by Bubba for a couple of decades? Maybe you would have chosen Bubba, but you must admit someone else might not.
You make some interesting points, but this "prison rape is part of the punishment" meme is particularly worrisome. First, there is the tacit assumption that prison rape is common, or at least significantly more common than base-rate rape. If true, we are not designing our prisons and guard procedures responsibly.
Next, and perhaps more disturbing, is the idea that this is ok, and even expected. After all, everyone in prison is a subhuman criminal and therefore deserves any treatment they get no matter how terrible, right?
This idea is so ingrained that it's even made light of in comedy movies (Office Space, for one..)
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You make some interesting points, but this "prison rape is part of the punishment" meme is particularly worrisome. First, there is the tacit assumption that prison rape is common, or at least significantly more common than base-rate rape. If true, we are not designing our prisons and guard procedures responsibly.
I think it's fucked up and I think that prison administrators who don't do everything possible to discourage it, prevent it, and severely punish anyone who does it are just plain evil.
However, it certainly does happen. Think about it. An inmate is locked in a confined environment with a bunch of people who have already demonstrated lawless and/or violent tendencies, some of whom may be in prison in the first place for raping someone, with little else to do all day except pump iron and establish what ar
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The more that remove themselves from it, the better.
Since you feel so strongly about it, why don't you kill yourself. I don't suppose your genes would be missed either. My guess: you have a big ego that says your life is more important than anybody else. Which gets me back to the smug sense of superiority.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh jeez, you're one of those 53% idiots. Your tendency to swallow political cliches without any sanity checking does not argue for your intelligence. If we had a eugenics comitttee that allocated the right to reproduce, you'd clearly be on the bottom of the list.
Fortunately, the Nazis made that approach to social engineering unfashionable (pretty much their only positive contribution to evolution), so you're free to reproduce. Which is fine with me, because it's perfectly possible for your children to be smarter than you. Just keep them away from the TV set and find someone to teach them a few critical thinking skills.
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There are harsh words in parent post. Not really untrue, but very harsh to the delicate ears of slashdotters.
But rather than Darwin awards, the better method of population control is to support the GLBT in their efforts to establish gay marriage rights, and so on. Each gay marriage removes TWO individuals from the reproductive circus. We need much more of that happening.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem that a lot of people have with this attitude is that it sounds like you're making excuses why nothing needs fixing. Most people don't turn to crime because they are inherently evil. Most people turn to crime because life dealt them a bad hand.
I find people will find or create whatever perception is convenient for them, with "convenient" meaning they do not have to change their perspective. Bonus points if they get to tell someone else how wrong they are, perhaps with condemnatory vitriol.
To say "nothing needs fixing" misses the point. Governments tend to become tyrannical. That's just a fact and has been a repeating pattern throughout history. Does that mean we just give up and submit to tyranny? No. It means we need constant vigilence. Crime is the same way. No, what people want is some kind of simple, easy, painless, one-shot Final Ultimate Perfect Solution that brings Heaven to Earth. They will remain disappointed.
If you want to talk of attitudes that are tiresome, this "life dealt them a bad hand" nonsense is a good start. I have both read about and personally known people who grew up under terrible conditions. Poverty, child abuse, neglect, gang violence, you name it. Some of it frankly makes me want to puke.
The people fitting that description whom I have met also happen to be some of the noblest and most kind-hearted individuals I have ever known. They didn't use their rough life as an excuse to menace and victimize others. They seem to understand that victimizing others just creates more people who will have the upbringing that they had, and they don't wish to perpetuate it.
So we are left, then, with what you seem to find inconvenient. There is at some point a difference between the criminals who had a rough life and think it's okay to create more victims, and those who had horrible upbringings and became wonderful people in spite of everything. What is the difference then? I say it's the nature of the person. Some struggle against the evil that was placed inside of them and lose. Others are victorious. It's a mysterious thing. It doesn't lend itself to the easy answers we always want. Why is that so hard to accept? We have become so arrogant as a society that we think we can scientifically explain every last detail of the universe?
I love logic. Logic works for problems within its domain. This isn't one of them. This requires a more organic understanding, spiritual if you like, though that's a rather loaded word these days, since people think that's something you get from a book, a leader, or pretty much anywhere except inside yourself.
Like I said, sometimes a rabid dog needs to be put down. You can speculate about where rabies originally came from, but you won't find any ultimate answers.
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Murder is "at best" a form of population control, and certainly involves "Darwin" - the strongest murderers survive. Can we at least not interfere in this one?
Let's face it: suicide happens. You'll get far more suicides happening by not talking about it than you will by revealing the truth to people - even if a few copycat suicides in the immediate aftermath are inevitable. Hint: people don't just kill themselves because they've seen a death, but may simply have seen a method for doing something they wanted
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's face it: suicide happens. You'll get far more suicides happening by not talking about it than you will by revealing the truth to people - even if a few copycat suicides in the immediate aftermath are inevitable. Hint: people don't just kill themselves because they've seen a death, but may simply have seen a method for doing something they wanted to do anyway.
This is true, but they've noticed correlations between different ways that suicide is discussed and the suicide rate following it. The suicide rate tends to go down if it is discussed in a way that includes urging people who are thinking about it to get help. However, when someone's glorified for their suicide and no one says to get help if you're thinking about it, suicide rates tend to go up. Of course, that's all just correlation, not causation, but it is interesting.
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That's understandable - people who wanted to do it might be pushed over the edge in the few days after. But, looking again at context, I'm not sure that the statistic is very useful. In the long term, does a graphic depiction of suicide cause people to talk about suicide more? And does that cause people to get help?
Of course things can be horrible for first/third party survivors of the immediate copycat methods, but would they have eventually attempted suicide anyway? IOW does anyone seriously think that no
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, nobody who dies from suicide could possibly have ever contributed [wikipedia.org] anything [wikipedia.org] to [wikipedia.org] the [wikipedia.org] benefit [wikipedia.org] of [wikipedia.org] society [wikipedia.org].
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, maybe those people were just pissed off at society taking their contributions and treating them like dirt, and decided to go on strike in a rather final way. If that's the case, trying to stop the suicide is just strikebreaking.
Turing particularly got the short end of the stick; Van Gogh famously sold only one painting in his lifetime, not counting "sales" to his brother. He also ate his paint and likely wouldn't have produced what he did if he wasn't crazy already.
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Hemingway ruined english class for pretty much EVERYONE. Don't put him in the same class as Cobain.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Copycat suicides (Score:5, Insightful)
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Could we have your name and address so we can make sure not to help you WHEN you get sick and infirm.
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Dunno, I sent that exact question to foxnewstips@foxnews.com yesterday but haven't received a reply yet.
Guess they're still thinking it over.
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