When the Olympic games opened last Friday, they were already marred by tragedy. An athlete from Georgia, a small country formerly part of Russia, died as a result of an accident on a luge training run. He was traveling at over 90 mph when he lost control of his sled and crashed into a large unpadded pole.
NBC, the American station carrying the Olympic coverage, slowed a video of his crash in slow motion several times during prime time viewing Friday night. The video was so detailed that viewers were able to see blood flying from his head and spraying the walls of the luge run.
Was showing this video ethical? Why or why not?
Due End of Class Today, Friday, February 19th
This video was extremely unethical. They are violating the athlete's privacy by showing this. Simply telling their audience what happened would have sufficed.
ReplyDeleteI dont believe showing this video was ethhical because, showing a person dying is disturbing and not essential to what ever story is being told. It is cruel to exploit the mans death by showing it as often as they did.
ReplyDeleteThough it is very bold and scary to some, I think it is ethical, because it properly shows the harms of races. I think showing it multiple times is a little excessive, but the video may have been needed in order to show what mistakes were made in the building of the walls of the track.
ReplyDelete1. Not ethical at all, because you are showing someone getting hurt and crashing and familys are sitting around their tvs and NBC is just playing it over and over. When they replay it over and over again it is probally makeing people mad and slow motion dose not help.
ReplyDeleteI think it was a ethical, however the slow motion over multiple times i feel violated the death of the luger. By showing the blood that was leaving the head made a focus more on the horor rather than the person.
ReplyDeleteThe showing of this video was NOT ethical. Although admittedly interesting (you don't always see death in the Olympics), he has a family somewhere that will have to watch that clip over and over again. They are grief-stricken over the sudden loss of their relative, and the replay of his death over and over in slow motion doesn't help them get over the loss. In the future it will be a sad reminder of what could have been, and the sense of loss will instantly be upon them. What also upsets me about this is that other news stations wrote articles questioning whether or not this was ethical, and they had a big picture of his death to accompany it. That's like saying "This probably wasn't okay, but here's what it looks like!". Those media stations are hippocritical. Critics place the blame on him, saying that he wasn't a good enough luger to not have a wreck like that. Now if he was terrible at luging enough to make himself die, why was he in the Olympics in the first place?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think one time would have sufficed but in America's society, people are whiny and I’m shocked someone hasn’t been sued yet. Being that it was the Olympics, it still shouldn’t of been shown several times but at least one time.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though showing this video was ethical. However, showing the video several times is unethical. When the World Trade Centers crashed, video of the crashing was all over the news. It was a way to show those who didn't see it in real life see everything for themselves and take it all in to truely register what was going on. Just like that, showing this video was needed to show everyone exactly what happened and what went down. But there is a fine line between showing graphic videos to be informative and share the news and showing these videos just to get the viewers.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to heard about this because one of my close friend died recently on Tuesday Feb. 16,2010 from a car accident. Before the accident, I didn't know how hard it was to lose people that are close to you like I did. She hit a pole like the Olympic athlete that got killed, so it is very hard to watch those details and hard to get over it with reminders on the news. Her story was on the local news Tuesday night.
ReplyDeleteThis video was extremely unethical. I know I would not want that shown on T.V. if it were me. Fact of the matter is that NBC was wrong in doing that, a simple report on the matter would have justified the situation just fine. I'm wondering why there has not been a law suit by now, but i am almost positive there will be one by the end of all the chaos over the Olympics. NBC should be ashamed that they even showed such a video.
ReplyDeleteI think that the video is extremely unethical. The athlete wasn't just injured, he was KILLED. That material is extremely inappropriate to show on national television. It's disturbing, violating, and wrong for the athlete's family and his memory.
ReplyDeleteshowing this video was very unethical. It's one thing to show it in normal motion and tell what happened but to slow the video and give details is stepping into the althelets personal life. Totally unethical on the publicity side of it.
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I believe that the station was unable to control the first showing of the video because they needed to inform the public and it had just happened. While this may be true, i believe that the station did not have to show it continuously. They did not have to show it in slow motion and keep re-iterating the tragedy. To report about it is one thing and to keep showing the horrible video is another. The family of this man is in mourning and they deserve to mourn without having to keep being reminded of their loss. It is not ethical to treat this situation the way that this station did.
ReplyDeleteI think its both. They knew of the danger on this turn. If you read reports of this story you would know that prior to his run the bobsleder had called his family reporting that he was nervous about the turn because the previous wreaks happening because the turns slickness. The picture was ethical because it showed the danger of the sport and it also represented the stupidity of the officals for not fix the problem of the turn after the first few wreaks. Its not ethical because of the multiple reruns and close up spread on news and internet world wide, making it reviewable to his loved ones back home.
ReplyDeleteI think that maybe showing the video once is okay and is reasonable, but showing it many times, in slow motion and showing it so detailed was more violent then should of being shown.
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