On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 2:35 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > The use of the word "censor" in this > > context implies either the government deciding what can and cannot be > shown, > > or non-news personnel exercising judgement that prevents newsworthy > material > > from being broadcast. Neither of those apply here. The government is not > > requiring that suicides not be broadcast, nor are account executives > > pressuring news professionals to not broadcast suicides. > > Yet, but if they knew the means were in place... Remember last year a > few members of Congress tried to create legislation for the so-called > internet panic button that could, in an "emergency," shut down all > internet access across the nation. I don't want to ever come close to > a system that could allow that to happen for any reason. > I can imagine the potential for abuse - but the technology for delaying live broadcasts already exists; I don't think using it on occasion makes it more likely that it will one day be abused. Terminology aside, time delaying sports or an awards show has no > underlying ethical ramifications because both are events of no > consequence to anybody. The same cannot be said of news broadcasts. > Let us say we delay car chases seven seconds, then maybe press > conferences 10 seconds because sometimes people can utter a bad word, > then maybe we delay footage of a war zone by several minutes to an > hour for reasons of security. Where does that delay end? And the news > would undoubtedly still have the word "live" in the corner of > something delayed 10 seconds (even though it isn't), so at what point > is the word "live" a lie? There is something to be said for your > argument that any effective means is fine, but my argument is that > honesty/truth is vital to journalism, and a delay can compromise that. > Well, I will stipulate as given that if they are delaying the feed by 5 seconds, they should no longer label it as live. But when did it become the norm for war news to be broadcast live? I would not mind if somehow a reporter was able to broadcast footage "live" from a war zone if the producer decided to put it on a 5 second delay in case the reporter or someone else got shot in the head during the feed. > > > ... I am going to > > dispute the implied claim here that the "liveness" of an event has any > > inherent relationship to its "newsiness". This seems very curious to me. > The > > ability to show any event live on television is relatively recent, so I > am > > not sure how live broadcasting ever got equated with the integrity of > news > > coverage. Indeed, if anything I think the argument could be better made > in > > the reverse. Most events are probably better covered from a journalistic > > point of view if they are not live, (SNIP) > > I agree with you for the most part, obvious exceptions being severe > weather or other potentially dangerous events unfolding in real time. > The thing is that I don't want to have to guess what aspect of my news > broadcast is live and what isn't. The reason media outlets cite for > covering car chases live is as a public safety concern, allowing > residents to know what is happening in their area -- this is, of > course, bullsh*t, but that is their claim. However, in the unlikely > event TV news actually becomes about something again, I don't want it > to be handicapped by ideas created during a period when journalism did > not exist and ethics went out the window. The solution for dealing > with people who are f*cking up the news is not to create technological > band-aids -- it is to get rid of the people f*cking up the news and > replace them with people who can serve the public. > It looks like we both agree that the claim that car chases are broadcast live for public safety in Los Angeles is BS, and even if it were not, it is hard to see how a 5 second delay would compromise that. I do agree that it is important to get competent people with actual experience and judgement making decisions in TV news. I also agree that they should bend over backwards to be honest about what is live and what is delayed. But I don't mind if a producer decides to put the end of a car chase on tape delay to help ensure that a suicide is not broadcast, which has the potential of increasing other suicides. Ironically, my understanding is that FN did have a delay on today, and the suicide still got though, which I guess means that someone was even more incompetent than you were thinking. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
