Hatrack River Forum: TV News and the moral high ground

This is topic TV News and the moral high ground in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :

I'm working with CNN on in the background, and they're talking about the plane crash in Chicago tonight. At the end of a lengthy wrap-up, their man in Chicago mentions that there are a lot of "those people" around who come out to airports to gawk at crashes . . . "unfortunately those people come out every time something like this happens."

erm,

What the hell do you think you're doing???

Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :

Ignore the man behind the curtain. We have a moral responsibility to lead everything that bleeds.

Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :

Nu uh. There's a difference.

Gawkers stay off to the sidelines and slow down traffic.

Reporters allow everyone to view it from home, thus eliminating the need to gawk. And they get in the way and ask stupid questions at the worst possible time.

Choose your poison. [Smile]

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :

Maybe the "gawkers" were stuck there in the massive traffic jam.
How many folks keep their radio tuned to the news just in case a jetliner happens to land on the road they're using?

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :

Reporters get paid, make their living by facilitating gawking-and, occassionally, providing a public service beyond titillation.

Just an example of someone thinking a TV camera in front of them linked to a transmitter makes them a more worthy person.

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

And considering Midway is surrounded by residential, how many of those gawkers were neighbors?

I do get frustrated at the level of coverage of certain events. Admittedly, I was watching CLTV (Chicago all-news station), but the only thing they broke away from the Midway situation for ALL NIGHT LONG was the weather report. Oh, and one brief blurb that there was a train-car incident on the north side, which seemed to be mentioned in an aside to indicate how heavy the NTSB presence will be here for the next few days because of how many situations they'll need to investigate. No sports, no other mention of accidents on the roads (and hoo boy were they all over the place), minor mention of the horrid travel times because that's part of the weather broadcast, nothing about a church that burned up in Gary or a kid who was arrested for taking a gun to school in Plainfield (these were on the scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen only).